with
the industry in localities where the fisheries are pursued are a
sufficient number of persons to populate a city the size of Boston, and
to these we may safely add an equal number as herein noted,
aggregating about 1,000,000 people whose livelihood is directly
dependent upon the production and traffic of the pearl industry, and
who for lack of it would be forced to seek some other employment.
Brought thus to a concrete form, one may readily grasp the important
bearing which the pearl has in a comprehensive estimate of the
complexity of the world's civilization as we know it to-day.
