The natural pearl was among the most prized of all jewels from the earliest times.Pearls are found inside oyster shell and have been fished by divers off the coasts of Sri Langka and Australia, in the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea, in the South Seas off the Tuamoto archipelago.
The divers risked their lives as they plunged 50 to 100 feet on one lungful of air, searching for oysters, swiftly prizing them off the rocks with hands or knives, putting them in a sack, then quickly returning to the surface for air. My husband and I had these experinces in Perth, Australia when we were fishing for abolone during its season.The life of the diver was never an easy one.
Many of the pearls from Roman and Renaissance times came from the Persian Gulf.
Freshwater pearls have been found many in Scottish rivers, such as the Tay and the Doon, for more than 2,000 years. The River Conwy in Wales and streams in Ireland, France, Austria and Germany have also been fished for pearls. River pearls are also found in Nova Scotia and in streams in the Mississippi valley.
Cultivated Pearls .
Biwa freshwater pearls are cultivated in Biwa-ko (lake), in Japan. Freshwater mussels were grafted with tissue from another mussel in up to 20 places and after much experimentation, produced small rice-shaped pearls. If the extraction was done carefully, a second and third crop from the same mussels was possible without further grafting
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