the "Shan Hai King" supposed
to have been written B.C. 2255, makes mention of the existence of
Pearls. The 4th book of this work, or "The Classic of Mountains and
Seas," refers to the Li river, one of the affluents of the Tung-Ting
lake, which drains the north-west portion of Hunan. " In it are many
Chu-pick fish " (or water animals). "These look like lungs, but have
eyes and six feet, and they have Pearls. They taste sour but
pleasant, and are not unwholesome." The existence of Chu-pick fish is
confirmed in Liishi's edition of the Book of Confucius, and they are
probably cuttle-fish with six tentacles. The same book also states that
wild animals were found which looked like sucking-pigs, but have Pearls.
Passing
now to the significance which has been assigned by imaginative writers
to Pearls, we may remark that from the earliest times they have been
considered as emblems of purity, beauty, and nobility. Among the
Romans they came, besides, to be regarded as emblematical of conjugal
bonds, and upon a very fine sardonyx, portraying the marriage of Cupid
and Psyche, " the high contracting parties " are represented joined
together by a string of Pearls, the ends of which are in the hands of
the god Hymen.
In comparatively modern times, however, they
