HOW PEARLS ARE FORMED

HOW PEARLS ARE FORMED

Outline:-

1.      Where are the4 shell-fish called oysters found?

2.      How does the oyster come to make a pearl?

3.      How do men get those pearls from the shells?

   Often people forget that the beautiful pearls which adorn the fingers and the ears of rich ladies were made by a humble little shell-fish It is the oyster which produces this lovely gem, a thing that most of us have only seen in the shops of big Karachi Jewelers. It is wonderful process. When the oyster is a tiny thing, it floats about on the surface of the sea, without any shell, just like a piece of jelly. When the shell begins to grow, the oyster is too heavy to swim, and sinks down to the bottom. There it fastens itself to a rock or to some other object, and opens its shell to let in the sea-water, which has in it little things which form the food of the oyster.

Sometimes the fish gets more than it wishes, for a tiny parasite or grain of sand enters the shell and presses against the body of the oyster, causing. The poor oyster cannot get rid of it; and as it cannot bear to be tickled by the substance, it sets to work to cover it over and make it smooth. From the oyster’s?? a fluid which forms a covering for the rough grain of sand, and this  covering hardens. Then more and more layers of the fluid are applied, like successive coats of paint. They also become hard, and in lime that little grain has been formed into a beautiful pearl. It has grown bigger with each succeeding coat of the fluid, and this is the kind of pearl that we see in the bracelets of ladies. But there is another kind of pearl. This is the lining of the oyster shell. It is called mother of pearl, and is used to make ornaments and buttons and the handles of knives and forks.

The oyster’s shell is very rough inside, and he must have smooth bed on which to lie and so he sends out his fluid to harden and to coat the inside of the shell, smooth and beautiful like the loveliest enamel. The best pearl oysters are found off the coast of Australia, New Guinea, Borneo, the Philippines and Ceylon.

Some of the divers, who are able to catch an oyster with its shell open drop in little things to become coated with pearls. If you ever visit London, go to the Natural History Museum in South Kensington, and you may see there some shells into which the chins put the figures of little idols. The idols are now quite coated over with mother of pearl. The outside of shell wears away in time, revealing the inside coating. But as the outside wears away, the oyster keeps building up the mother-of-pearl inside, so that shell shall not become thinner or less safe for his home beneath the sea.