Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 80, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 April 1913 — Real Origin of the Pearl [ARTICLE]

Real Origin of the Pearl

Science Has Rudely Shattered Poetlo Idea That Has Been Held For Centuries. For many centuries,.even until comparatively recent times, it was the common belief that pearls were drops of dew that gained entrance into the shell of an oyster, and were there transpired irtto lustrous gems. Arab and Indian divers still believe that at certain seasons oysters come to the surface and suck in the rain-drops that later become pearls. Science, however, has rudely shattered this poetic fancy, and discovered the real origin to be' a worm. Dr. Hugh M. Smith gives some Interesting information on this subject in the National Geographic Magazine. We now know that almost any foreign body—a grain of sand, a bit of mud or shell, a piece of seaweed or a small animal —may by Its irritation cause the mollusk to cover it with nacre and make it the nucleus of a pearl; but the largest part of the annual pearl-crop of the world is due to parasites that normally pass a part of their life-cycle within the shell of the pearl-oyster. Minute spherical larvae of marine worms known as Cestodes become embedded In the soft tissues, as many as forty having been found In one Ceylon oyster. As the result of Irritation, the oyster forms a protecting sac about the Intruder, and then, if

the larva dies. Its body is gradually converted into carbonate of lime, and the pearly mass proceeds to grow with the' shell. If the larva lives, it may pass Into the body of the strong-jawed triggerAshes wtyich prey on the pearl-oysters, there undergoing further development Ultimately it reaches the body of the great rays, which in turn eat the trig-ger-fishes. In the nays the worms attain full development, and produce larvae that are cast into the sea and And lodgment In pearl-oysters., Thus the cycle is begun once more. We may literally accept the saying of a celebrated French investigator, that "the most beautiful pearl is in reality only the brilliant sarcophagus of a worm."