into
pills, powders, oils, and majooms. The following is one of the
processes by which burnt Pearls can be assimilated with each other.
Strain the burnt powder well, put this into a bottle with some lime
juice, and cork it up. Fill up half of an earthen vessel (kandi) with vinegar, and hang the bottle over it by means of strings from outside, so that, it does
not touch the liquid. Cover the vessel up with an earthen dish, and
keep it under a heap of cow-manure for 14 days. Then take it up, and
after opening it, the powder having been converted into water, becomes
one congealed lump. According to some authorities, it is not necessary
to pour vinegar into the vessel ; the result desired might be obtained
by attending to the other conditions of the process."
It need scarcely be added that the therapeutic virtues of the Pearl, extolled in the foregoing quotation, are purely imaginary.
Breeding Pearls.
Amongst
all the ideas which have been entertained, both in ancient and more
modern times, with regard to Pearls—grotesque and fanciful though many
of them may be—none appears more romantic than that of their reputed
powers of re-production.
In 1878, the subject of "Breeding Pearls"
