Ancient Ideas on their Origin and Virtues. 53
of
the month Nisan, a certain dew falleth down into the waters, which
being gathered, the inhabitants wrap together, and being fast closed
they cast it into the sea, that it may sink of its own accord to the
bottom of the sea, and in the middle of the month Tisri, two men being
let down by ropes unto the bottom,· bring up certain creeping worms,
which they have gathered, into the open air, out of which—being broken
and cleft—these stones are taken."
It
is worthy of remark that this rain or dew-origin of Pearls as we may
call it—was found by Columbus to exist among the semi-savages of the
New World :—
"The
natives entertained the old fanciful idea which the earlier
naturalists' did ; they supposed the Pearls formed from petrified
dew-drops, in connexion with sunbeams. We can therefore well credit
the astonishment of Columbus and his mariners when in the Gulf of
Paria they first found oysters clinging to the branches of trees, their
shells gaping open to receive the dew which was afterwards to be
transformed into Pearls."
The oyster here alluded to is the Dendrostrea or "Tree Oyster," a mollusc which is to be found upon the roots or branches of mangrove trees
