Ladies’ sewing case and scissors inlaid with half-pearls; watches incrusted with half-pearls; snuff-box, ivory inlaid with fresh-water pearls; miniature surrounded by half-pearls 395
Evolution of a seed-pearl brooch. Seed-pearls, Indian strings. White horsehair for stringing 396
Facsimile of letter of M. Gaston Mogeaud, Director of the Louvre 398
Madame Thiers’s pearl necklace, bequeathed to the Louvre Museum, Paris 398
Tyszkiewizc bronze statuette of Aphrodite 407
Pearl earrings from Herculaneum and Pompeii 408
East Indian necklace of pearls, table diamonds, glass beads, gold and enamel 413
Crown of Reccesvinthus and other Gothic crowns of the seventh century 416
Her Majesty, Queen Alexandra of Great Britain and Ireland, Empress of India 418
(From a photograph by W. & D. Downey, London)
(From “The English Regalia,” published by Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Company, Ltd., London)
Pearl ornaments of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries 434
Collection of black pearls belonging to an American lady 440
Señora Carmen Romero Rubio de Diaz, wife of President Porfirio Diaz of Mexico 442
(From a photograph by Valleto & Co., Mexico)
Jade jar inlaid with pearls set with fine gold. Japanese decoration set with pearls 444
(From “Portraits and Jewels of Mary Stuart,” published by James MacLehose and Sons, Glasgow)
Queen Elizabeth of England. Elizabeth of France 456
Pearl carpet or shawl of the Gaikwar of Baroda 460
Her Grace, the Duchess of Marlborough 465
(From a photograph by Lafayette, Ltd., London)
The Madame Nordica collection of colored pearls 468
Grand pearl diadem of the French crown jewels 471
The Great Sévigné of the French crown jewels 474
Fresh-water pearls from Hopewell group of mounds, Ross County, Ohio 499
Fresh-water pearls from Hopewell group of mounds, Ross County, Ohio 510
The pearling regions in Ceylon and British India 129
Persian Gulf and the Red Sea, the pearling center of the world 140
The pearling regions in Oceania and Malaysia 191
Venezuela and Panama, the principal pearling regions of South America 227
Gulf of California and the pearling territory of western Mexico 243
The preparation of this book has been a joint labor during the spare moments of the two authors, whose time has been occupied with subjects to which pearls are not wholly foreign—one as a gem expert, and the other in the fisheries branch of the American government. But for the views and expressions contained herein, they alone are personally responsible, and do not represent or speak for any interest whatever. For many years the writers have collected data on the subject of pearls, and have accumulated all the obtainable literature, not only the easily procurable books, but likewise manuscripts, copies of rare volumes, original edicts, and legislative enactments, thousands of newspaper clippings, and interesting illustrations, many of them unique, making probably the largest single collection of data in existence on this particular subject. It was deemed advisable to present the results of these studies and observations in one harmonious volume, rather than in two different publications. This publication is not a pioneer in an untrodden field. As may be seen from the appended bibliography, during the last two thousand years hundreds of persons have discussed pearls—mystically, historically, poetically, and learnedly. Among the older writers who stand out with special prominence in their respective periods are the encyclopedist Pliny, in the first century A.D.; Oviedo and Peter Martyr of the sixteenth century; the physician Anselmus De Boot, and that observant traveler and prince of jewelers, Tavernier, in the seventeenth century. It would be difficult to do justice to the many writers of the nineteenth century and of the present time; but probably most attention has been attracted by the writings of Hessling and Möbius of Germany; Kelaart, Streeter, Herdman, and Hornell of Great Britain; Filippi of Italy, and Seurat and Dubois of France. While the book is a joint work in the sense that each writer has contributed material to all of the chapters and has critically examined and approved the entire work, the senior author has more closely applied himself to the latter half of the text, covering antiquity values, commerce, wearing manipulation, treatment, famous collections, aboriginal use, and the illustrations, while the junior author has attended to the earlier half of the book, with reference to history, origin, sources, fisheries, culture, mystical properties, and the literature of the pearl.