302 Pearls.
Browne,"
writes Mr. Cheesewright, under date August 7, 1886, "that the Pearl was
discovered by a man named Clark, while Pearl-fishing at Roeburn, in
Western Australia, in the schooner ' Ethel,' the owner being a Roman
Catholic, called ' Shiner Kelly.' When the shell was opened, Clark
senior, Shiner Kelly, and more especially young Clark, were filled with
amazement and awe. Kelly regarding it as some Heaven-wrought miracle,
with a certain amount of superstitious dread, buried it— for how long
it is not known. The Pearl was discovered in 1874, and in 1879 the
great Australian explorer, Alexander Forrest, saw it in Roeburn, just
before he commenced his journey to Kimberley. The Pearl has changed
hands many times, and each time it has done so, the person parting with
it has made a hundred per cent, on the price he paid for it. It is now
the property of a syndicate of gentlemen in Western Australia, and it
was at the solicitation of these gentlemen that I was induced to bring
it home."
This
extraordinary Pearl Cross was exhibited in a prominent position in the
Western Australian Court of the Colonial and Indian Exhibition of 1886.
The cluster of Pearls was set in a simple gold mount, leaving the back
of the Cross as well as the front face perfectly free. In consideration
of
