The
increase in value of pearls has been going on during the last twenty
years very rapidly, and the increase has been far greater than is the
case with diamonds or even with emeralds. The causes for this advance
in price are better known than in the case of diamonds, and the
probable value of pearls in the future can therefore be more
definitely forecasted. Regarding these points I will draw largely from
a personal letter from Mr. Ludwig Nissen, of New York:
In
brief, then, the cause for the advance in price of pearls is simply
that the supply is now absolutely inadequate to meet the demand. The
supply is chiefly from two sources, — the fisheries and the accumulated
stores of the great Indian rajahs. The fisheries, the only primary
source, are gradually being exhausted. In the last five years,
statistics show that there has not been an average of ten million
dollars' worth of pearls from all the fisheries combined, while much
more than ten million dollars' worth of pearls are sold annually in New
York City alone. Furthermore, there has not been a new pearl fishery
discovered in the last fifty years. This exhaustion of the fisheries
has been accelerated by the methods used. In former years divers went
down to the bottom of the
