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River Pearls ; British and Foreign. 249
If
any are detected, they cut the muscles which hold the two valves
together, and extract the Pearls ; but if none are found, the creature
is restored uninjured to the water. The Pearls are put into a bottle
of water on the spot, and afterwards dried and sorted in the house.
Sometimes a mussel will be found with small Pearls in it, which give
promise of better growth. Such shells are marked with the point of the
iron and put back. Sometimes excellent Pearls have been obtained from
mussels which have been so treated."
In
Bavaria the principal rivers which yield Pearl-bearing mussels are
those of the Bayrische Wald, or Bavarian Forest, between Regensburg
(Ratisbon), and Passau, and some others which take their rise further
north, in the Fichtelgebirge. The most celebrated rivers are the Ilz
and the Regen. At the Nuremberg Exhibition of Bavarian Products in
1882, there was displayed a large collection of the shells and Pearls,
together with examples of the artificial production of Pearls by
causing the mollusc to deposit nacre on small moulds of fanciful
shapes, after the Chinese method, which will be explained below. The
Bavarian Pearls have been carefully studied by Dr. Theodor Von
Hessling, who has written an elaborate monograph on the subject.
River-Pearls are also found occasionally in the
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