The divers are paid differently, according to their private agreement with the boat-owners, either in money or with a proportion of the oysters caught, which they take the chance of opening ou their own account : the latter is the method most commonly adopted. The agreements with the people who hire out the boats are conducted much in the same manner. They contract either to receive a certain sum for the use of their boats, or pay the chief farmer of the banks a certain sum for permission to fish ou their own account. Some of those who pursue the latter plan are very successful and become rich, while others are great losers by the speculation. The spirit of gambling is more openly exhibited, for oyster lotteries are carried on to a great extent, and they consist of purchasing a quantity of the oysters un opened, and running the chance of either finding or not finding pearls in them. As soon as the oysters are taken out of the boats, they are carried by the different people to whom they belong and placed in boles or pits dug in the ground to the depth of about 2 feet, or in small square places cleared and fenced round for the purpose, each person having his own separate division. Mats are spread below them to prevent the oysters from touching the earth, and here they are left to die and rot. As soon as they have passed through a state of putre faction and have become dry, they are easily opened without any danger of injuring the pearls. On the shell being opened, the oyster is minutely examined for the pearls; it is usual even to boil the oyster, as the pearl, though commonly found in the shell, is not unfrequently contained in the body of the fish itself.
Captain Percival, in his account of Ceylon, states that in preparing the pearls, particularly in drilling and stringing them, the natives are wonderfully expert. A machine made of wood, and of a shape re sembling an obtuse inverted cone, about six inches in length and four in breadth, is supported upon three feet, each twelve inches long. In the upper flat surface of this machine holes or pits are formed to receive the larger pearls, the smaller ones being beat in with a little wooden hammer. The drilling instruments are spindles of various sizes, according to that of the pearls ; they are turned round in a wooden head by means of a bow handle, to which they are attached. The pearls being placed in the holes, and the point of the spindle adjusted to them, the workman presses on the wooden head of the machine with his left band, while his right is employed in turning round the bow handle. During the process of drilling, he occasionally moistens the pearl by dipping the little finger of his right hand in a cocoa-nut filled with water, which is placed by him for that purpose ; this he does with a dexterity and quickness which scarcely impede the operation, and can only be acquired by much practice. The Cingalese
have also a variety of other instruments both for cutting and drilling the pearls. To clean, round, and polish them to the state in which we see them, a powder, made of the pearls themselves, is employed. These different operations in preparing the pearls occupy a great num ber of the natives in various parts of the island. In the black town or pcttah of Columbo in particular, many of them may every day bo seen at this work.
The Chinese adopt a singular mode of procuring pearls by artificial means, that of compelling or inducing the fish to make them. They force open the shell of a large river mussel, and put in a small bit of wood or metal. The fish becomes irritated, and covers the intruding substance with a pearly deposit. Very often small clay figures are thus introduced, representing Buddha in the sitting posture in which that image is most frequently pourtrayed. It has been stated that uo leas than 5000 families are engaged in this singular branch of industry near Ningpo. Some of these pearl-covered figures of Buddha are to be seen in the South Kensington Museum.
The beautiful substance called (somewhat expressively) mother of pearl, is the hard, lustrous, brilliant internal layer of shells, especially oyster shells, and more particularly the pearl oyster. In English oysters this substance is too thin to be workable for manufacturing purposes ; but the oysters of the eastern seas yield it of considerable thickness. The brilliant hues which distinguish mother of pearl do net depend upon the nature of the substance, but on an exquisitely fine series of furrows upon the surface, which shed a brilliant reflection of colours according to the angle at which the light falls on them. Much care is required in working this delicate substance; but it may be cut by saws, files, and drills, with the corrosive aid of sulphuric or muriatic acid. It Is polished by colcothar of vitriol. In all those ornamental manufactures where pearl is said to be used for flat sur faces, such as inlaying, mosaics, buttons, knife-handles, &c., it is not real pearl, but mother of pearl, that is employed; and the quantity now consumed in England, especially at the manufacturing establish ments of Birmingham and Sheffield, is very large. An Instance has been recorded of a ship arriving at London from Panama with more than two million pearl shells.