River Pearls ; British and Foreign. 235
Roman writers regarded the British Pearls as of marine origin.
Of
all the rivers of Britain the most famous for Pearls in ancient times
was the Conway, or Conwy, in North Wales. This river — the Toisobius of
Ptolemy—flows through some of the most picturesque scenery of
Carnarvonshire, and has been described not inaptly as the "Welsh
Rhine." It is in the higher reaches of the river, above Trefriw, that
the best Pearls have been found. Mr. Robert Garner, in a paper read
before the British Association in 1856, says that "The true
Pearl-mussel must be searched for a good many miles up the river, and
the writer found it plentiful about a mile above the ancient bridge of
Llanrwst, near the domain of Gwydir, where the water is beautifully
clear, rapid and deep, and it may be had thence up to Bettws-y-Coed."
Of
late years, however, fewer Pearls have been found than formerly. Thomas
Pennant, writing in the latter part of the last century, speaks of as
many as sixteen Pearls having been taken in a single shell, in the
Conway ; and he then proceeds to explain the origin of these bodies,
according to the lights of his day. He regarded them as nacreous
calculi. " They are," says he, " the diseases
