fetched.
At this very day I can show some of our own Scots Pearls as fine, more
hard and transparent than any Oriental. It is true that the Oriental
can be easier matched, because they are all of a yellow water, yet
foreigners covet Scots Pearls."
The
revenue from this industry shortly afterwards began to decline, and
the fishing was almost abandoned until the year 1860, when it was
revived by a German, who prosecuted the almost forgotten trade for a
while with such success that in 1865, the value of the Pearls found was
computed at £12,000 for that year alone,—an assertion, however, that
requires confirmation.
Mr.
John Gibson, of the Edinburgh Museum of Science and Art, writing in
1885, in the new Ordnance Gazetteer, of Scotland, says that :—" Of
fresh-water bivalves the most important Scottish species is the
Pearl-mussel. It is found in most of the mountain streams, but the
Scottish Pearl-fishery has been chiefly prosecuted in the rivers Forth,
Tay, Earn, and Doon."
We
believe that at the present time very little is done in the way of
fishing for Pearl-mussels in any of the rivers of Scotland, and that
the search which is occasionally made by fishermen in the most
