Book II

, chap. 36) as being “of leather, cut into strips at the bottom (forming a fringe), at the end of each of which hung a small shell named ‘cueclitti’ which reproduced a sound when she walked.” As it is stated that this “star-skirt” was worn over “a white one” it seems as though it must have been of the kind, represented in codices and sculptures, made of openwork and netlike, and studded with round objects—possibly pearls—at the crossings or in the centers of the open spaces.

Oil-paintings of the madonnas represent them with robes richly embroidered with pearls, and wearing “ropes of pearls.” The Virgin of the Rosario, in the church at Santo Domingo, Mexico, was noted for her pearls, and there is a small oil-painting of this virgin, in which she is depicted with a wealth of pearls.

In the Bohemian National Exposition, held at Prague in 1891, Count Schwarzenberg exhibited four embroideries, each fourteen by eight inches. They were embroidered with Bohemian pearls found on his domains a century or more previous, and contained many thousands of pearls.

In Hungary pearls have always been the favorite jewels, especially among the aristocracy, and they have served to adorn the national costume of both men and women. A century ago nearly every family of distinction owned a necklace, but most of the pearls were small and of indifferent quality. Since that time fine pearls have become more usual, and many wealthy Hungarian families have acquired beautiful pearls of good size and excellent quality, and many splendid necklaces can now be seen in Hungary. The following are some of the finest:

A necklace of three large rows, owned by the Archduke Joseph and valued at one million francs.

A still larger necklace in the possession of Prince Nicholas Esterhazy; this, however, is an entailed heirloom, and may not be parted with without the king’s permission.

A very fine necklace of five rows, also an entailed heirloom, owned by Count Maurice Esterhazy.

A large necklace, possessed by Countess Alois Karoly, wife of the late ambassador in London. This is another entailed heirloom; its value is at least a million and a half francs.

An unusually large necklace of four rows, such as one rarely sees, owned by the Countess Wenkheim. The pearls are white, and have a good shape, but not much brilliancy. The average size of these pearls is approximately twenty-four grains.

An equally large necklace consisting of a single row, averaging twenty-six grains, in the possession of Countess Louis Batthyani.

There are a great many other necklaces of fine quality, worth from 300,000 francs down to 100,000 francs, belonging to families such as those of Count Joseph Hunyadi, Countess Festetics-Hamilton, Count Landor Nako, Peer Leo Lanczi, Count Albert Apponyi, Mr. Eugene Dreher, Madame Emma de Bachrach, etc., etc. Indeed, almost every wealthy family of the better class owns a necklace worth up to 100,000 francs and over.

[Illustration:

PEARL ORNAMENTS OF THE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

Hungarian Aigret Earring, Hungary Earrings, Nijni-Novgorod Spanish earring ]

The portraits of the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries afford us many interesting evidences regarding the various forms of jewelry in which pearls were used. Indeed, had we no other records, these pictures alone would prove the great popularity of the gem as an ornament.

In the finely executed portrait of the Duchess Anne de France, she wears a coronet with three pearls at each point. It seems to be made up of three large pearls, set on a row of pearls circling the entire top of her head, beneath which is a row of great emeralds, and then another row of pearls. Flaring downward and entirely covering the side of her head near the ear, are two rows of pearls with a row of fine emeralds between them, the rows of pearls deflecting slightly downward until the chin line is reached, and then turning back and slightly upward, meeting at the back. As in the crown cap, the same severe decoration in pearls is the main feature, and is repeated on each side of the robe, the front of which is of ermine. Beginning on a line with the shoulder is a broad band of pearls and emeralds set in gold which extends below her waist. At the top of this are six pearls set in a straight line. Then from the end of this line, dropping straight down, is a row on each side. Between the two rows is a gem, then two great pearls and another gem, then two more pearls, this being repeated to below the waist. The ermine is held at her waist by a trefoil reversed; that is, two pearls above and one below a great gem, and then a trefoil reversed below this. This portrait is dated 1498 and is on a triptych in the cathedral of Moulins.

Quite unique is the pearl decoration in a picture of St. Barbara, painted by an artist of the French school, and dated 1520, which is in the National Museum of Budapest. This artist uses pearls with the utmost severity of taste and richness. Beginning a trifle above the center of her forehead is an emerald ornament, and on each side there extend to the back of her head three rows of pearls, not placed exactly one row above the other, but the rows intertwined with each other. The whole is enriched by a great string of pearls about her neck. The effect produced is extremely artistic and beautiful.

Catharine de’ Medici wore two rows of pearls on her bonnet, and a quaint necklace in sections of two rows of four pearls, with a large pearl between; a pear-shaped pendant on a Renaissance jewel; a row of pearls around her low-cut bodice, and a girdle of jewels alternating with pearls, which extended to the lower end of her gown. In addition to all this, she wore a bracelet of jewels with a pearl set between each ornament. This artistic combination is best shown in her portrait in the Uffizi, Florence (No. 726), painted by an unknown artist.

One of the most unique, rich, and chic collections of pearls, and one worn with unusual grace, is that of the Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia, shown in the fine portrait of her by Coello Sanchez. In this portrait her hat shows the plumes embroidered with slanting rows of three, four, and five pearls. In the center of the hat is an ornament shaped like a flower, with seven large pearl petals surrounding a great pearl center. The hat is tilted to one side showing her hair on the left, while a little to the right of the center of her forehead, and touching it, there hangs from her hair a great pear-shaped pearl, which adds a wonderful amount of character to the jeweling of her head. Around her neck is a high fluted ruff; below which is a collar of large gems relieved by an ornament of two pearls placed between each gem. The same interesting motive is carried out in a girdle of gems which comes down very low to her waist, terminating in a large jeweled heart ornament. The painting shows sixteen remarkable pearls in the collar, and thirty-six pearls in the jeweled girdle.

A very interesting collection of portraits was exhibited last spring (1907) at the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. The pictures are contained, in some instances, in old illuminated manuscripts, while in others they are contemporary crayon sketches. Many pearl decorations are represented, and we give a few of the most important.

The portrait of Anne de Bretagne (1476–1514), wife of Louis XII, from the “Heures d’Anne de Bretagne,” illuminated by Jean Bourdichon, represents the queen kneeling; she wears a collar ornamented with groups of four pearls alternating with precious stones.

A crayon sketch of Françoise de Foix, Comtesse de Châteaubriant (1490–1537), who became the mistress of Francis I, shows her wearing a hood or coif ornamented with forty oval pearls. She also wears a necklace of sixty fine round pearls.

Diane de Poitiers (1499–1566), granddaughter of Charles VII and Agnes Sorel, is represented with a head-dress similar to that worn by the Comtesse de Châteaubriant . It has a border of sixty round pearls. This crayon is of the time of Jean Clouet.

A portrait of Philip Strozzi (1541–1582) who, although an Italian, had the rank of colonel-général in the French army, is interesting as an illustration of the wearing of earrings by the men of this period. The fine round pearl which hangs from his ear strikes us now as a curious ornament for a warrior.

A crayon sketch of Gabrielle d’Estrées (d. 1599), mistress of Henri IV, is attributed to the hand of Daniel Dumonstier. Here may be seen a splendid pearl necklace, which apparently consists of six sections, each comprising three rows of eight round pearls, the sections being connected with each other by a large oval pearl. The necklace, which hangs down over the bosom, is fastened by a clasp in the form of a four-leaved clover, from which depend two other sections similar to those described above, and terminating in an oval pearl pendant.

The portrait of the Duchesse de Montpensier (1627–1693), the “Grande Mademoiselle” of Mme. de Sévigné’s letters, is from the “Maximes de nostre salut,” dedicated to the duchess by the author, M. de la Serre, and is attributed to Nicolas Jarry. It represents the duchess wearing a beautiful necklace of round pearls and a large pear-shaped pearl earring, while another pear-shaped pearl depends from a clasp which serves to loop up her fichu on the shoulder.

A fine example of the Renaissance style existing in the sixteenth century is that of a gold and enamel necklace of Italian workmanship, embellished with pearls. This necklace was presented to the Louvre Museum by Don A. de Rotschildt. The two-pearl motive is carried out exquisitely, two pearls appearing in a small connecting ornament between two larger enameled and engraved gold plaques, which represent scenes from the life of our Saviour.

At the exposition of 1900 there was shown in the Russian Pavilion, a most interesting collection of jewelry of decidedly oriental character, dating from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century. These jewels were said to have belonged to the Emir of Bokhara. They differed slightly from the East Indian in character, and generally consisted of combinations of pearls, rubies, and emeralds, the three colors of these gems predominating. One of the most interesting of the necklaces, acquired by J. Gelatley, Esq., shows an arrangement of the pearls which is peculiarly attractive and decorative.

The heraldic significance of pearls has at times been very important. While in the eighteenth century the crowns of the French nobles were surmounted with silver points, it appears that in the sixteenth century they were provided with pearl points. According to Rudolphus,[477] the dukes wore a leaf crown of eight leaves, with or without as many commingled pearl points; the marquises a crown of four leaves with twelve pearl points, or with four groups of three pearls set one over the other; and the counts, a pearl crown which sometimes had four pearls in each corner, one above the other. The viscounts wore a gold ring set with four pearls, and the barons a gold ring entwined with pearls.

The same is true of the English coronets. Instead of the pearls which they bore at an earlier period, silver balls are now used on those of the English barons, viscounts, earls, and marquises. This change probably owed its origin to the desire on the part of the sovereigns to confine the official use of pearls and other precious stones to themselves. The rules at the coronation of Edward VII forbade the use of pearls except as a special royal privilege. The earl’s coronet has eight balls raised on points, with gold strawberry leaves between the points. The marquis wears one with four gold strawberry leaves and four silver balls alternating, the latter raised above the rim.[478]

A pearl and gold ring, formerly belonging to Washington, is now in the possession of Vice-Chancellor E. B. Learning, of Camden, N. J. It bears in the center a lock of Washington’s hair under a conical glass, around which is a setting of blue and white enamel with a square of red at each corner. The whole is surrounded by a circle of thirteen pearls. This ring was presented by Washington to Lieutenant Richard Somers prior to the latter’s departure on the expedition against the Algerine pirates in Tripoli, in the course of which he lost his life. Before his departure he left the ring with his sister, Sarah Keen. Vice-Chancellor Leaming’s paternal grandmother inherited it as heir to Somers’s estate, and from her it descended successively to her son and grandson. The lock of Washington’s hair is admitted to be one of only three now existing, of the other two, one is at Washington’s headquarters at Newburg and the other in the museum at Boston. The ring was exhibited at the Centennial Exposition in 1876.

And what a wealth of pearls was seen at the marriage of the late Emperor Frederick III of Germany with Princess Victoria, in 1858! The wedding gift of the bridegroom consisted of a necklace of thirty-six enormous pearls, three superb ones in the middle, and graduated in size toward the ends. From her mother, Queen Victoria, the bride received a diamond necklace and three massive brooches set with unusually large pearls; and from Prince Albert, a magnificent hair-net of pearls, diamonds, and emeralds. The king and queen of Prussia presented a diadem of brilliants surrounded with a splendid circlet of pearls. On the day of her entry into Berlin, the queen bestowed on the bride a costly brooch of pearls and diamonds, representing a bouquet, the leaves of which consisted of diamonds, while the flowers themselves were of pear-shaped pearls of large size, one weighing 160 grains, and fourteen of them weighing 600 grains together.

One of the most splendid and best known collection of pearls, and one worn with as much grace as any in Europe, consists of those owned by the dowager Queen Margherita of Italy, whose name signifies pearl, and who has always been fond of the ocean jewel. Her husband, King Humbert, made her many presents of this regal gem. A photograph, signed by the queen and sent to us for this volume by her gracious courtesy, shows her wearing her magnificent twelve strings of pearls, a pearl bracelet, and a pearl tiara with pear-shaped pearl tips.

[Illustration:

MARGHERITA, DOWAGER QUEEN OF ITALY ]

At the coronation of Edward VII and Queen Alexandra, beside her coronation crown, the latter wore many of her richest and most beautiful jewels. These consisted of seven immense rows of pearls, each twenty-four to thirty inches in length, hanging below five large neck circlets of diamonds and a great corsage ornament which covered her entire bodice; and beneath part of this was a splendid ornament of diamonds with large, pear-shaped pearls.

A careful study of the decorations conferred by potentates and governments shows that the pearl is rarely used in the ornamentation of these marks of distinction. A notable exception is that given by the Siamese government. This decoration is known as the nine-jewel Siamese decoration, and bears a large center pearl. It is only conferred on nine members of the royal Siamese family, including his Majesty the King of Siam. The central pearl represents the king and the eight other jewels surrounding it the members of his family. It is strange that Siam should find so much significance in white, as is illustrated by the white elephant, and also by the use of the white pearl for this order.

The Order of Christ, the chief Portuguese order, has a long cross enameled in bright red surcharged with a white cross and bordered with fine pearls. The effect is both striking and beautiful.

The order of the crown of India is a jeweled badge with a device composed of the imperial cipher, E. R. and I., in diamonds, pearls, and turquoises, set within a border of pearls and surmounted by the imperial crown.[479]

A remarkable pearl necklace was recently the subject of litigation in England. It was the property of the late Duchess of Sermonata, an Englishwoman who married an Italian. She was a daughter of the late Lord Howard de Walden, one of the wealthiest of the English nobility. The duchess was in the habit of investing all her spare cash in pearls, and it seems that she chose a very good form of investment, since pearls have increased in value to a greater extent even than diamonds during the same period. Of the ten rows of which this necklace consisted, six were deposited for safekeeping in a London bank and the other four were in Florence at the time of the death of the duchess. She had bequeathed the gems at the bank to her niece, Miss Henrietta Ellis, and had left directions that, if her pearl necklace was in London when she died, it should be sent to her Italian executors. All the jewels are now claimed by these executors, while Miss Ellis contends that it was the intention of the duchess to leave to her the pearls in the hands of the London bankers. The necklace consisted at one time of ten rows; the first, thirteen and a half inches long, comprised forty-one pearls; the second, fourteen inches in length, thirty-nine pearls; the third, fourteen and a half inches, forty-three pearls; the fourth, seventeen inches, forty-seven pearls; the fifth, seventeen and a half inches, forty-nine pearls; the sixth, nineteen and a half inches, fifty-five pearls; the seventh, twenty-one inches, sixty-six pearls; the eighth, twenty-three and a half inches, seventy pearls; the ninth, twenty-six inches, eighty-two pearls; the tenth, twenty-nine and a half inches, ninety-one pearls. The total number of pearls is 583, and the necklace is valued at $150,000.

A widely advertised necklace of large size was shown in the English section of the Paris Exposition of 1900. This necklace consisted of forty-six pearls weighing 1596 grains, and was valued at $450,000. It was loaned by an English gentleman now dead, and was returned to him at the close of the exposition and later dispersed.

In regard to the possession of pearls by families in the United States, we may safely say that there is not a letter in the alphabet under which we cannot find the names of from one to a dozen families, owning single strings or collections from the value of $10,000 to $200,000, or even more. If one is a wearer of jewels, pearls are an absolute necessity; indeed, they are as essential and indispensable for the wealthy as are houses, horses, and automobiles. At no period in the world’s history have pearls been more widely distributed; and some of those of to-day are finer in quality and orient, and also more carefully matched, than those in the great collections of the past. Of course there are exceptions, where royal personages have been careful observers and have used good taste, but it is a question whether there have ever been more critical or better buyers, as far as selection is concerned, than are many American men and women who have purchased this gem.

One of the largest pearl necklaces in the United States is in the possession of an American lady. There are perhaps thirty pearls in the necklace, weighing in all about 1400 grains; the largest pearl weighs nearly 120 grains. There is also one of 75 grains and one of 70 grains, the others graduating down to 20 grains.

[Illustration:

COLLECTION OF BLACK PEARLS BELONGING TO AN AMERICAN LADY ]

With increasing wealth, and a demand for rich rather than gaudy or showy jewelry, there is nothing that commends itself so highly as the pearl, which acts as a foil to the diamond, emerald, ruby, and sapphire, and at the same time harmonizes with them and in fact with all the colored stones. The true pearl, as it increases in size and beauty, becomes proportionately more rare and costly; and yet it differs from other jewels in the fact that they are mined in the depths of the earth, and their existing quantity is speculative, while the home of the pearl is much more accessible, and it is possible to make an estimate of the number of pearls in course of growth. Pearls, however, are forming all the time, while other gems are perhaps to-day as they were ages before the advent of man. Nevertheless, even if pearls were cultivated as they should be, and people cared for the mollusks as the oyster-gatherer does for his crop—by planting it, guarding it and gathering it systematically—still, the ever-increasing demand would more than balance the greater supply. As we have said, at no time since pearls were worn have they enjoyed such favor; and while they have always increased in value, this increase has never been so rapid as in the past ten years. They are jewels which can be worn by young or old, and which adapt themselves to every fabric that man or woman can use for attire; whether they are white, gray, or black, they are never obtrusive, but always have a refining effect. Round as the globe upon which we live, they will probably be worn and appreciated as long as life exists upon this sphere.

It is interesting to note the change of taste and the difference of opinion, at various epochs, in regard to the respective merits of pear-shaped and round pearls. In the Roman period the pear-shaped pearls were more highly valued; in the eighteenth century round pearls were esteemed the more valuable, while at the present day they are both on about the same basis.

With the progressive twentieth century taste for independence in fashion, our modern ladies take from every epoch what they think will best suit their superrefined beauty. Therefore we are not surprised to find in their jewel-cases the long earrings and large brooches adorned with seed-pearls, similar to those worn by their grandmothers of the early Victorian period. Although these jewels cannot be considered very beautiful according to the artistic standard of to-day, they, nevertheless, lend to their wearers a certain quaint dignity and piquancy which is very attractive.

As an instance of modern pearl-wearing by a lady of the present century, we may note a portrait in which there is a simple necklace of large pearls; over this a collar of twenty-three rows of pearls with a diamond centerpiece, and to relieve the severity, a sautoir, which is made up of alternate pearls and diamonds, and pearl earrings. No better illustration can be given than the portrait of Señora Carmen Romero Rubio de Diaz, wife of President Porfirio Diaz of Mexico, which, by her courtesy, we are able to figure.

The gathering of a great necklace is not the work of a day; it often requires many years. Such necklaces are frequently held for a long time by dealers or by a number of people who are interested in their sale, and whenever one or more pearls can be purchased which form a better graduation or which are of better color or more perfect, they are usually purchased to improve the necklace if the price is a proper one.

In the early sixties, when most American women aspired to owning a pair of diamond earrings, it was not uncommon for ladies to start with a hundred, two hundred, five hundred, or a thousand-dollar pair, and, for a dozen years to come, to add an annual sum of one hundred, two hundred or five hundred dollars to increasing the size of these by exchanging them with the dealer at the cost price and paying the difference between the value of the pair that had been purchased and that of the new pair. In this way ladies who never would have thought of spending five thousand dollars for a pair of earrings, virtually made a savings-bank of the jewels. This is frequently done with pearls. A small necklace or a few pearls will be purchased; these are added to annually or at such times as the owner may have spare savings or gifts to invest. It is not uncommon for a family to buy a pearl for a daughter on her first birthday, and each succeeding year add one pearl to this, so that she may first wear one pearl, then two, then three, and by the time the young lady makes her début in society, a good start has been made toward a pearl necklace. It was the custom of King Humbert of Italy to present his queen, Margherita, with one fine pearl every year, and with this succession of annual gifts she possessed one of the finest collections in Europe.

In the portraits of the four daughters of the present Czarina of Russia, the Grand Duchesses Tatiana, Olga, Maria, and Anastasia, we can see that their pearl necklaces were built up gradually, as that of the eldest daughter is notably longer than those of her younger sisters. These pearls were annual gifts from the Czar and Czarina and from others of the imperial family.

There are few ornaments worn by man or woman that have not at one time or another been bepearled, either with large or small pearls, with one pearl or many pearls, with pearls of high or low degree, and no object is ever made the less rich by the addition of the peerless gem of the ocean depths.

As the prices of pearls have increased, naturally the single objects containing them have also become more costly. It is not unusual to see rings with pearls each costing from $5000 to $10,000, $20,000, and even $30,000 and over, the pearls not infrequently being in button form.

Rings are occasionally made up of one white and one black oriental pearl, and if a pink one is combined with these, it is either a fresh-water or a conch pearl. Such rings sell for $5000, $8000, $10,000 and $15,000 each.

Pendant pearls, either round, ovate, drop, or pear-shaped, sell from $5000 to $10,000, $20,000, $50,000, and even $100,000.

The prices for one or two choice pearls worn for the adornment of a man’s shirt-front are $2000, $3000, $5000, and even $10,000.

[Illustration:

SENORA CARMEN ROMERO RUBIO DE DIAZ, WIFE OF PRESIDENT PORFIRIO DIAZ OF MEXICO ]

In link buttons, slightly ovate, button or round pearls are used, the link being made up of one white and one black pearl, costing $2000, $3000, $5000, and even $20,000 a set.

It is not unusual for a man to wear a scarf-pin set with a round, ovate, or pear-shaped pearl costing $2000, $5000, $10,000, $15,000, and even $30,000.

For men’s scarf-pins, a variety of colors are frequently selected, such as a white oriental, a pink American, a pink conch, or a gray and black oriental pearl.

Single pearl necklaces sell for $1000, $2000, $5000, $8000, $10,000, $15,000, $20,000, $50,000, $100,000, $250,000, and $500,000 necklaces are not unknown.

Tiaras sell for $10,000, $20,000, $50,000, and $100,000.

Waistcoat buttons, sometimes made up of baroque pearls, cost from $200 to $500; sometimes, however, when fine pearls are used, the price paid for a set of five or six buttons is as high as $10,000.

It is scarcely possible to mention all the various forms in which the pearl has been worn: whether as a spray of many small pearls or a few large ones, either round, ovate, or pear-shaped for aigrets; in points on crowns, used either for ornamental or heraldic purposes; for the decoration of the orbs, scepters, and crowns of kings and emperors; for forming an edging on bonnets, caps, fillets, or diadems; in pendant form, usually consisting of one, although sometimes of three or four pendants in rows and lines to ornament the side of the face; or one, two, three, or a bunch together to adorn the ear; as a single pearl on a wire or a group of them, as worn in the nose of the East Indian beauty; as a single, two, three, or many-rowed necklace to grace the lady, the queen, and the empress; or else in six, ten, to twenty or more rows with a tiny gold jeweled bar, or a large diamond center, in the form of collars; as a long chain from four to ten feet long to hang from the neck to the waist, or else to be worn once, twice, or thrice around the neck, hanging down and then encircling the waist in the form of a sautoir; either as a single drop, consisting of an ovate or pear-shaped pearl or a number of them together in the form of a pendant combined with diamonds; as a single pearl surrounded with pearls or diamonds for buttons to adorn my lady’s crown; in rows, or combined with jewels and enamel, in the form of a bow-knot with long bunches of pearls, for shoulder bars; either as one pearl alone or alternating with gold wire, with jewels, or with many pearls, in endless forms, as bracelets; either as a single row, two rows or alternate rows in infinite variety on bodices, as worn in the past more than at the present; in a single row on ornamenting metal, enamel, or jewelwork in the form of girdles; in five hundred forms for rings; as an embroidery or in rows pendant on slippers; and, finally, as a stole. These are only a few of the uses to which a lady can put pearls.

By men, pearls are worn to adorn the shirt, to wear in the scarf, as link buttons, as waistcoat buttons, or as a fob. The pearls used in this way are sometimes quite as expensive as any of those worn by the ladies.

Ecclesiastics, for more than two thousand years, have appreciated the richness of bepearling. In Russia we find pearls decorating crosses, missal covers, vestments, bindings on books, chalices and crook-tops; they are employed as borders to ikon frames, or for the decoration about the Madonna and Child. In Persia we find pearl-embroidered rugs, pillows, and bolsters. Half-pearls are used in quaint decorations for watches, snuff-boxes, miniatures, and portrait frames. Even saddles and horse-trappings in the East do not escape the charm and beauty of the pearl. Even the English coronation spoon is known for the pearls which ornament it.

Of the many forms of earrings that have come down to us, none is simpler or daintier than a single pearl worn as an ear-screw, or partly or entirely strung on a thin gold wire. Another dainty style is three pearls, worn one below the other as in ancient Rome, known as a triclum; or the round pearl with a pear-shaped pendant or bunches of pearls known as crotalia, also worn in ancient times.

A pearl necklace is usually clasped either by a round or ovate pearl, drilled so that the catch and snap are contained within the pearl itself, or else by a pearl surrounded by diamonds, rubies, or other gems. Such a clasp frequently serves to bind from two to fifteen rows of pearls, the first or smaller row encircling the neck, and each row in turn being larger until the fifteenth row reaches to the bosom or even to the waist.

Pearl collars are usually made up of four, six, ten, twenty, and even twenty-five rows; often of very small pearls, generally fitting closely to the neck. The pearls are held in position either by four gold, diamond, or jeweled bars, or frequently the entire front of the collar is occupied by a large diamond ornament.

In ancient times, pearls were a favorite decoration of crosses; frequently an entire cross was made up of pearls, either of a single or a double row. Many portraits dating from the fifteenth to the seventeenth century show the cross used in connection with a necklace, this either starting from the top of the cross or from each side at the end of each arm. Sometimes from below the arms and the lower part of the cross there hung pendant either round or pear-shaped pearls. We have other instances where at the top, the cross was attached to a pearl necklace, while below each of the two arms there hung a pearl, and from the lower part of the cross a double necklace again reached to the back of the neck. Frequently a festoon collar will be made up of five rows of pearls, each of a graduated length, and pendant on each a diamond. Recently pearls have been drilled and invisibly joined by fine platinum links, so as to form a continuous ribbon or even a collar two inches wide; occasionally, a Greek border or some other design, of larger pearls or of diamonds, rubies, sapphires or other gems, is interwoven. This constitutes a veritable, smooth pearl cloth, or pearl mesh, very beautiful and also comfortable to wear. Indeed, a purse, measuring five by six inches, has been made of this cloth of pearls.

[Illustration:

Jade jar inlaid with pearls set with fine gold

Heber R. Bishop Collection, Metropolitan Museum of Art ]

[Illustration:

Japanese decoration set with pearls

Order of the crown of the First Class. Metropolitan Museum of Art ]

Dust-pearls, too minute to drill, and numbering over 100,000 to the ounce, were used, in the latter part of the eighteenth and the early part of the nineteenth centuries, for the embellishment of the hair-work then so much in favor and which was placed under glass. Where foliage was represented the leaves were made of the most minute seed-pearls, graduated in size and set on an outline of enamel or white paint, the pearls being cemented to the outline. This added a softness to the hair-work and other decoration.

As long as the pearl has been known, there has been a desire to obtain possession of one in some of its degrees of perfection, and for this reason many attempts have been made to prepare something that might pass for a pearl or even suggest a pearl. Sometimes the mother-of-pearl shell has, naturally, a protuberance, either round or pear-shaped, which, if cut off and highly polished may resemble an imperfect pearl; and this operation is often so cleverly performed that, at the first glance, this object may pass for a true pearl. In Russia, and especially in Bohemia, they have gone farther than this. They have cut out a bit of mother-of-pearl shell, leaving a piece of the natural shell for the top, or the part that will be visible, and rounding off the rest of the surface so as to give it a pearly effect. These objects are of trifling value and are used in necklaces and earrings, and in the ornamentation of icons and miniature frames and even as beads. Glass with either an exterior or interior coating of a nacreous substance is sometimes made absolutely round, while at other times it is made with many imperfections so as to resemble either a marine baroque or a fresh-water irregular pearl. The North American Indian, as described elsewhere, has coated little balls of clay with a powder made from a pearl-bearing fresh-water mussel and then baked them.

XVI

FAMOUS PEARLS AND COLLECTIONS

XVI FAMOUS PEARLS AND COLLECTIONS

The kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls: who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it.

_St. Matthew_, XIII, 45, 46.

In the course of twenty centuries many pearls and pearl collections have become famous, either because of their intrinsic value or else through historic associations. An attempt is made here to list briefly the more important of these. While we have purposely omitted any mention of the pearl collections in private hands at the present time, some of which are more valuable than many of those noted in the following pages, we have, nevertheless, given the principal sales of pearls at auction during the past twenty years. Many specimens of remarkable size and beauty have changed hands in this way, more especially in England.

CLEOPATRA PEARLS. Next to that “pearl of great price,” mentioned by Christ, probably the most famous of all pearls were the two which Pliny records as having been worn in the ears of Cleopatra, “the singular and onely jewels of the world and even Nature’s wonder.” This writer does not note their size, but estimates their value at sixty million sestertii. We have already quoted the passage in which Pliny relates how one of these pearls was dissolved and swallowed by Cleopatra in order to win a wager she had made with Antony. After the death of that queen the other pearl “was cut in twaine, that in memoriall of that one halfe supper of theirs, it should remaine unto posterite, hanging at both the eares of Venus at Rome in the temple of Pantheon.”[480] Budé estimated the value of the pearl dedicated to Venus at 250,000 _escus_ of gold.[481]

Another famous pearl mentioned by Pliny was the one which Julius Cæsar presented to Servilia, mother of Brutus, the value of which he notes as six million sestertii.[482]

PEROZ PEARL. The historian Procopius,[483] of the sixth century, tells of a magnificent pearl which belonged to Peroz, or Firuz (459–484), one of the Sassanian kings of Persia. In the course of his disastrous battle with the White Huns, in which both he and his sons perished, Peroz, having a presentiment of the misfortune about to befall him, took the pearl from his right ear and cast it away, lest any one should wear it after him. This pearl is described as being “such as no king had ever worn up to that time.” Procopius, however, thinks it more probable that the ear of Peroz was cut off in the combat, and he states that the emperor (Zeno, 426–491) was very anxious to buy the gem from the Huns, but that all search for it was in vain. Nevertheless, a rumor was current that it was recovered later, but that another pearl was substituted for it and sold to Kobad, a successor of Peroz.

A different version is given by Panciroli,[484] who quotes Zonaras, a Byzantine historian of the twelfth century, as his authority. According to this version Justinian the Great, who succeeded to the throne forty-three years after the death of Peroz, offered one hundred pounds of gold (about $25,000) for the pearl, but the barbarians refused to part with it, preferring to keep it as a memorial of Persian folly. On the coins of Peroz he is represented wearing an earring with three pendants, one of which may have been this wonderful pearl.

CHARLES THE BOLD. One of the greatest jewels of the fifteenth century was that belonging to Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy (1433–1477). According to notes and drawings[485] made in 1555 by J. J. Fugger of Nuremberg, who was the banker jeweler of his generation, this consisted of a large pyramid diamond five eighths of an inch square at the base, with the apex cut as a four-rayed star in relief; surrounding this were three rectangular pyramid-shaped rubies and three magnificent pear-shaped pearls, and a large ovate pearl was suspended from the lowest ruby. The pear pearls are described as measuring half an inch in diameter and must have weighed about sixty grains each. This magnificent jewel was probably the most celebrated in Europe during the fifteenth century. According to Comines, on the defeat of the Grand Duke and the plundering of his baggage by the Swiss at Granson in 1476, the ornament was found by a careless soldier who tossed it away, but retained the gold box containing it. On second thought, he searched for and recovered the jewel and sold it to a priest for one florin, and the ecclesiastic sold it to a Bernese government official for the sum of three florins. Some years later this jewel, together with the ducal cap of Charles the Bold, which was covered with pearls, and bore a plume case, set with diamonds (points), alternating with pearls and balas-rubies, was sold by the Bernese government to Jacob Fugger, as related by J. J. Fugger in the manuscript above noted, “for no more than 47,000 florins.” In the vain hope that it would be purchased by Emperor Charles V, grandson of Charles the Bold, Fugger held the jewel for many years, but he broke up the cap and reset the stones in it for Maximilian II. The brooch was finally sold to Henry VIII of England just before his death, and it passed to his daughter and successor, Bloody Mary, who presented it to her Spanish bridegroom, Philip. Thus, after seventy-six years, the jewel was restored to a descendant of the original owner. This history has been given at some length owing to its illustration of the manner in which great pearls were easily lost on battle-fields and were passed about from one country to another.

[Illustration:

GAIKWAR OF BARODA, 1908 ]

TARAREQUI PEARLS. The early American fisheries yielded several magnificent pearls, many of which eventually became part of the imperial Spanish jewels. Prominent among these was the _Huerfana_ or _Sola_. According to Gomara, this was secured in 1515 from the Indians at Tararequi, in the Gulf of Panama, in a large collection which weighed 880 ounces. It was pear-shaped and weighed thirty-one carats. Gomara states that this pearl was purchased from Gaspar de Morales, leader of the Spanish expedition, by a merchant, for the sum of 12,000 castilians. “The purchaser could not sleep that night for thinking on the fact that he had given so much money for one stone, and sold it the very next day to Pedrarias de Avila, for his wife Donna Isabel de Bovadilla”; and afterward it passed to Isabella, wife of Emperor Charles V (1500–1558). It was remarkable for its luster, color, and clearness, as well as for its size. Another large pearl in this collection weighed twenty-six carats.

OVIEDO PEARL. As already noted on page 237, in his “Historia natural y general de las Indias,” published at Toledo in 1526, Gonzalo de Oviedo wrote of having purchased at Panama a pearl weighing twenty-six carats for which he paid 650 times its weight in fine gold, and which he claimed was the “greatest, fairest and roundest” that had ever been seen at Panama. Probably this was the twenty-six-carat pearl obtained at Tararequi by Gaspar de Morales in 1515. At 650 times its weight in gold the value of this pearl would be $2294.54; representing a base of $.2124 per grain; but at a base of $5 per grain the same pearl would be worth $54,080, equaling 15,320 times its weight in gold.

TEMPLE OF TALOMECO. Among great collections of pearls, some writers would place that described by Garcilasso de la Vega as having been found by De Soto and his followers in 1540 in the Temple of Talomeco near the Savannah River in America.[486] According to Garcilasso, the quantity of pearls there was so great that 300 horses and 900 men would not have sufficed for its transportation, vastly excelling every other if not all other collections in the history of the world. Unfortunately the accuracy of this account has not been unquestioned.

LA PEREGRINA. Most celebrated among the early American pearls was La Peregrina (the incomparable), or the Philip II pearl, which weighed 134 grains. According to Garcilasso de la Vega, who says that he saw it at Seville in 1597,[487] this was found at Panama in 1560 by a negro who was rewarded with his liberty, and his owner with the office of alcalde of Panama. Other authorities note that it came from the Venezuelan fisheries in 1574. It was carried to Spain by Don Diego de Temes, who presented it to Philip II (1527–1598). Jacques de Treco, court jeweler to the king, is credited with saying that it might be worth 30,000, 50,000 or 100,000 ducats, as one might choose to estimate, for in fact it was so remarkable as to be beyond any standard valuation. If we can credit Garcilasso, at one time this pearl decorated the crown of the Blessed Virgin in the church of Guadeloupe, which was resplendent with gems.[488] A contemporaneous account[489] notes that it was worn at Madrid by Queen Margarita, wife of Philip III, at the fêtes given in celebration of the treaty of peace between that country and England in 1605.

CHARLES II PEARL. Somewhat similar to the foregoing was the pearl of Charles II of Spain (1661–1700), which was presented to that monarch by Don Pedro de Aponte, Conde del Palmer, a native of the Canaries. This gem was found in 1691, or more than a century after La Peregrina. These two pearls were nearly equal in size, and for many years they were worn as earrings by the successive queens of Spain. It is reported that they were destroyed in 1734, when a large portion of the old palace at Madrid was burned.[490]

[Illustration:

MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS

The property of the Earl of Leven and Melville. About 1559–1560 ]

The jewels of the Spanish crown have passed through so many vicissitudes that it is not surprising that but few of them remain in the Spanish treasury. After the overthrow of the Spanish monarchy by the French in 1808, Ferdinand VII, during the time of his exile, disposed of many of these jewels. It is asserted that, after the deposition of Queen Isabella, in 1868, the crown jewels were divided between herself and her sister, the pious Duchesse de Montpensier, and a considerable portion was eventually distributed among the numerous descendants of the latter. It is also stated that there is no mention of the Spanish crown jewels during the reign of King Amadeus, the first sovereign of the restored monarchy. There are, however, great quantities of pearls and other gems belonging to the various madonnas in the Spanish churches, as, for example, Nuestra Señora de Atocha, Cavadonga and others.

PEARLS OF MARY STUART. The pearls owned by the unfortunate Mary Queen of Scots (1542–1587) were among the most beautiful in Europe. Inventories of these[491] show great _bordures de tour_ of large pear pearls with _entredeux_ of round pearls, long ropes of pearls strung like beads on a rosary, carcans or broad belts set with pearls, and a large number of loose pearls. Many of these appear in the portraits of this popular queen; but probably the most remarkable exhibition of them is in the portrait now owned by the Earl of Leven and Melville,[492] which appears to agree fairly well with the inventories of her jewels, although this portrait is not wholly free from impeachment as to its accuracy and contemporaneousness.

After the downfall of the queen, most of her jewels were sold, pawned, or lost by theft. A number of them passed into the possession of Queen Elizabeth in 1568, in a manner not wholly satisfactory to lovers of justice. Some of these were described in a letter dated May 8, 1568, and addressed to Catharine de’ Medici by Bodutel de la Forest, the French ambassador at the English court, as “six cordons of large pearls, strung as paternosters; but there are about twenty-five separate from the others much larger and more beautiful than those which are strung. They were first shown to three or four jewelers and lapidaries of this city, who estimated them at three thousand pounds sterling, and who offered to give that sum; certain Italian merchants who viewed them afterwards valued them at 12,000 _escus_, which is the price, as I am told, this queen [Elizabeth] will take them at. There is a Genevese who saw them after the others and estimated them as worth 16,000 _escus_ [$24,000].”[493]

Catharine de’ Medici, who was a mother-in-law of Mary Stuart, was very anxious to obtain these pearls; but the ambassador wrote on May 15, 1568, that he had found it impossible to purchase them; for, as he had told her from the first, they were intended for the gratification of the Queen of England, who had purchased them at her own price, and was even then in possession of them.[494]

QUEEN ELIZABETH’S PEARLS. Although in her youth she is said to have had a distaste for personal decorations, in her later years Queen Elizabeth entertained an extravagant fondness for pearls. In speaking of her portraits, Horace Walpole says: “A pale Roman nose, a head of hair loaded with crowns and powdered with diamonds, a vast ruff, a vaster fardingale, and a bushel of pearls, are features by which everybody knows at once the pictures of Queen Elizabeth.”[495] And to the end, her love for them was unabated, for in the last tragi-comic scene of her life, to meet the Angel of Death himself, she was dressed up in her most splendid jewels with great pearl necklaces and earrings and pendants, as Paul Delaroche so successfully pictured in his remarkable painting in the Louvre.

The faded waxwork effigy of her, long preserved in Westminster Abbey in that curious collection of effigies[496]—the “Ragged Regiment,” as Walpole called them—has a coronet of large spherical pearls in wax, long necklaces of them, a great pearl-ornamented stomacher, pearl earrings with large pear-shaped pendants, and even broad, pearl medallions on the shoe-bows. In accordance with that singular custom which prevailed from the time of Henry V (1422), to that of Queen Anne (1714),[497] this effigy lay on her coffin at the funeral and caused, says Stow in his Chronicle, “such a general sighing, groning, and weeping, as the like hath not beene seene or knowne in the memory of man.” A contemporaneous poet wrote that when the corpse with the effigy passed down the Thames to lie in state at Whitehall,

Fish wept their eyes of pearl quite out, And swam blind after.

GRESHAM PEARL. During the reign of Queen Elizabeth, Sir Thomas Gresham, the merchant prince, was credited with possessing a pearl valued at £15,000, which he reduced to powder and drank in a glass of wine to the health of the queen, in order to astonish the Spanish ambassador, with whom he had laid a wager that he would give a more costly dinner than could the Spaniards.[498] No other information regarding this pearl seems available. The valuation certainly appears excessive when compared with that of some other pearls of that period.

We quote an item from Burgon,[499] taken from the manuscript journal kept by Edward VI:

25 [April, 1551]. A bargaine made with the Fulcare for about 60,000 l. that in May and August should be paid, for the deferring of it. First, that the Foulcare should put it off for ten in the hundred. Secondly, that I should buy 12,000 marks weight at 6 shilinges the ounce to be delivered at Antwerpe, and so conveyed over. Thirdly, I should pay 100,000 crowns for a very faire juel of his, four rubies marvelous big, one orient and great diamount, and one great pearle.

RUDOLPH II PEARLS. The scientific, art-loving, but eccentric Rudolph II (1552–1612), Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, gathered about him at Prague a great collection of jewels and wealth of all sorts. The values of his pearls and precious stones, of the gold and silver articles, was estimated by the archæologist, Jules Cæsar Boulenger, at seventeen millions of gold florins, which was a very considerable sum at that time, as appears when we consider that one hundred gold florins annually was deemed a good salary for an official at the emperor’s court. De Boot mentions a pearl belonging to Rudolph II which weighed “thirty carats and cost as many thousands of gold pieces.” It is quite likely that this was the one noted by Gomara as coming from the Gulf of Panama,[500] and which Rudolph probably inherited from his grandfather, Emperor Charles V. The pearl bought by Oviedo in Panama, prior to 1526, may be one of the principal decorations of the imperial crown of Austria.

We read in that curious and interesting book, “The Generall Historie of the Turkes,” by Richard Knolles,[501] that Abbas the Great, Shah of Persia (1557–1628), after having defeated the Turks in many battles, desired to form an alliance with Emperor Rudolph II, and to induce him to break his engagements with the Turks. To this end Shah Abbas, in 1610 sent an embassy to Prague, with many valuable gifts for the emperor, among which were “three orientall pearles exceeding big.” It has been conjectured, and it is also claimed, that these may be three of the eight pear-shaped pearls which are now to be seen in the crown of Rudolph II. One of the largest pearls in the Austrian crown, as we have stated, is most probably the Oviedo pearl.

CHARLES I PEARL. Admirers of Vandyke’s pictures of Charles I (1600–1649) readily recall the pearl pendant from his right ear, which appears in nearly all of his portraits by that artist. Janin wrote: “This pearl in the ear of his majesty was greatly coveted, and as soon as his head had fallen, the witnesses of the dreadful scene rushed forward, ready to imbue their hands in his blood in order to secure the royal jewel.” It seems more probable that the martyr king would have left this gem in the hands of a trusty friend for his family than to the risk of injury by the ax and to be torn from his mutilated head by a scrambling mob.

OWING to their control of the great fisheries, the most valuable collections of pearls have been held by eastern monarchs, and

## particularly by those of India and Persia. It has been estimated that

one third of the portable wealth of these countries is in jewels. Most Orientals are as suspicious of interest in their jewels as they are of inquiry regarding their harems, imagining, doubtless, that the interest conceals a sentiment of cupidity, hence it is not practicable to give a minute description of them. However, several travelers have recorded glowing accounts of collections which they have examined, which read much like a description of Aladdin’s palace in the Arabian Nights. Among these, some of the greatest are the

PEARLS DESCRIBED BY TAVERNIER. For accounts of remarkable pearls in eastern countries in the seventeenth century, we are indebted to that well-informed old French jeweler, Tavernier, one of the most remarkable gem dealers the world has ever known. He made numerous journeys to Persia, Turkey, Central Asia, and the East Indies, gaining the confidence of the highest officials and trading in gems of the greatest value. After amassing a large fortune and purchasing a barony near Lake Geneva, he died at Moscow in 1689 while on a mercantile trip to the Orient, at the age of eighty-four years. His “Voyages,” published in 1676–1679, reveal a critical knowledge of gems, a remarkable insight into human nature, and the absence of any intention to impart misleading information.

In the first English edition of his travels, published in 1678, Tavernier gave sketches of five of the principal pearls which came under his careful observation.

Figure 1 of Tavernier’s diagram shows what he considered “the largest and most perfect pearl ever discovered, and without the least defect.” The weight of this pear-shaped gem does not appear to have been noted, but from the sketch it may be estimated at about 500 grains. Tavernier states that the bloodthirsty Shah Sofi, King of Persia, purchased it in 1633 from an Arab who had just received it from the fisheries at El Katif. “It cost him 32,000 tomans, or 1,400,000 livres of our money, at the rate of 46 livres and 6 deniers per toman ($552,000).”[502]

[Illustration:

QUEEN ELIZABETH OF ENGLAND ]

[Illustration:

ELIZABETH OF FRANCE ]

Very much smaller but more beautiful than this great pearl, was the one which Tavernier saw in 1670 at Ormus in the possession of the Imam of Muscat, who had recently recovered the Muscat peninsula from the Portuguese. The jeweler stated that although this weighed only twelve and one sixteenth carats (forty-eight and a quarter grains),[503] and was not perfectly round, it surpassed in beauty all others in the world at that time. It was so clear and lustrous as to appear translucent. At the conclusion of a grand entertainment given by the Khan of Ormus, at which Tavernier was present, the Prince of Muscat drew this gem from a small purse suspended about his neck, and exhibited it to the company. The Khan of Ormus offered 2000 tomans (about $34,500) for it, but the owner would not part with his treasure. Tavernier states that later the prince refused an offer of 40,000 _escus_ ($45,000) from Aurangzeb, the Great Mogul of India.[504]

Figure 3 in the diagram represents a pear-shaped pearl of fifty-five carats (220 grains) which Tavernier sold to Shaista Khan, uncle of the Grand Mogul. Although of large size and good shape, this was deficient in luster. According to the jeweler, this pearl was from the Island of Margarita on the Venezuelan coast, and was the largest ever carried from Occident to Orient.

Tavernier listed among the Great Mogul’s jewels a large olive-shaped pearl, perfect in form and luster. The weight was not noted, but from the sketch which he gave (see Fig. 4) it may be estimated at about 125 grains. It formed the central ornament of a chain of emeralds and rubies, which the Mogul sometimes wore about his neck. He also listed a round pearl of perfect form (see Fig. 5). The weight of this also is not noted, but from the sketch it may be estimated at 110 grains. This was the largest perfectly spherical pearl known to Tavernier. Its equal had never been found, and for that reason it was kept with the unmounted jewels.

Among the other pearl treasures of the Great Mogul, Tavernier noted the following:

(a) Two grand, pear-shaped pearls, one weighing about seventy ratis,[505] a little flattened on both sides, and of beautiful water and good form. (b) A button-shaped pearl, weighing from fifty-five to sixty ratis, of good form and good water. (c) A round pearl of great perfection, a little flat on one side and weighing fifty-six ratis; this had been presented to the Great Mogul by Shah Abbas II, King of Persia. (d) Three round yellowish pearls weighing from twenty-five to twenty-eight ratis each. (e) A perfectly round pearl, thirty-five and a half ratis, white and perfect in all respects. This was the only jewel purchased by the Great Mogul himself, the others being inherited or coming to him as presents. (f) Two pearls perfectly shaped and equal, each weighing twenty-five and a quarter ratis. (g) Also two chains, one of pearls and rubies of different shapes pierced like the pearls; the other of pearls and emeralds, round and bored. All of these pearls were round and ranged in weight from ten to twelve ratis each.[506]

PEACOCK THRONE. The famous Takht-i-Tâ’ûs, or “Peacock Throne,” at Delhi doubtless contained the greatest accumulation of gems in the seventeenth century. It was completed, in the eighth year of his reign (1044 A.H., 1634 A.D.) by Shah Jehan, greatest of Mogul sovereigns, who likewise built the Taj Mahal at Agra, one of the most beautiful edifices ever designed by man. Abd-al-Hamid, of Lahore, in his Pâd-shâh-nâmah, “Book of the King,” composed prior to 1654, writes as follows:[507]

In the course of years many valuable gems had come into the imperial jewel house, each one of which might serve as an ear-drop for Venus or as an adornment for the girdle of the Sun. Upon the accession of the emperor, it occurred to him that, in the opinion of far-seeing men the acquisition of such rare jewels and the keeping of such wonderful brilliants could render but one service, that of adorning the throne of the empire. They ought, therefore, to be put to such a use that beholders might benefit by their splendour and that majesty might shine with increased brilliancy.

As described by Tavernier in 1676, great quantities of pearls were used in the ornamentation of this throne, the arched roof, the supporting pillars, the adjacent sun-umbrellas, being well covered with these gems, many of them of great value. The choicest one was pear-shaped, yellowish in color, and weighed about fifty carats (200 grains);[508] this was suspended from a great ruby which ornamented the breast of the peacock. “But that which in my opinion is the most costly thing about this magnificent throne is that the twelve columns supporting the canopy are surrounded with beautiful rows of pearls, which are round and of fine water, and weigh from 6 to 10 carats each [24 to 40 grains].”[509] The total value of the jewels entering into the ornamentation was estimated at 160,500,000 livres or $60,187,500; and the present value of the throne as it stands in the shah’s palace at Teheran, whither it was carried by Nadir Shah from the sack of Delhi in 1739, even though divested of many of its most valuable gems, is estimated at $13,000,000.[510] The designer of the Peacock Throne was Austin de Bordeaux, who also planned the magnificent Taj Mahal. He was named by Shah Jehan, “Jewel-Handed,” and received a salary of two thousand rupees a month.

SHAH’S “TIPPET.” Sir Harford Jones Brydges’ description of the jewels of the Shah of Persia at Teheran is of particular value, since he had formerly dealt in jewels and was an expert in such matters. He says:

I was particularly struck with the king’s tippet, a covering for part of his back, his shoulders and his arms, which is only used on the very highest occasions. It is a piece of pearl work of the most beautiful pattern; the pearls are worked on velvet, but they stand so close together that little, if any, of the velvet is visible. It took me a good hour to examine this single article, which I have no fear of saying can not be matched in the world. There was not a single pearl employed in forming this most gorgeous trapping less in size than the largest marrow-fat pea I ever saw raised in England, and many—I should suppose from 150 to 200—the size of a wild plum, and throughout the whole of these pearls, it would puzzle the best jeweler who should examine them most critically to discover in more than 4 or 5 a serious fault. The tassel is formed of pearls of the most uncommon size and beauty; and the emerald which forms the top of the tassel is perhaps the largest perfect one in the world.... For some days after I had seen these jewels, I attempted to make an estimate of their value, but I got so confused in the recollection of their weight and the allowance to be made in some of them for their perfection in water and color, that I gave it up as impossible. I cannot, however, think I shall much mislead if I say that on a moderate, perhaps a low calculation, their value cannot be less than fifteen millions [sterling?] of our money.[511]

SHAH’S PEARLS IN 1820. Nearly a century ago the elaborate state costume of the Shah of Persia was described by the English artist, Sir Robert Ker Porter. In this description he mentioned particularly the pearls in the tiara, the pear-shaped pearls of immense size with which the plumes were tipped, the two strings of pearls—“probably the largest in the world”—which crossed the king’s shoulders, and the large cushion incased in a network of beautiful pearls against which he reclined.[512]

PEARLS OF THE GAIKWAR OF BARODA. Among the greatest jeweled treasures of India are those of the present Mahratta Gaikwar of Baroda, who has precedence over all the rulers in India at all functions, and is one of the most prominent and enlightened of the Indian princes. He governs a province of about 8225 square miles and 2,415,396 inhabitants in the northwestern part of India, 248 miles north of Bombay. Most of these treasures, whose value is estimated at a dozen million dollars, were collected by his predecessor, Mahratta Khandarao, who lived in barbaric splendor, and they are rarely worn by the present gaikwar. These treasures include a sash of one hundred rows of pearls, terminating in a great tassel of pearls and emeralds; seven rows of superb pearls whose value is estimated at half a million dollars; a litter set with seed-pearls, quantities of unstrung pearls, and more remarkable yet, a shawl or carpet of pearls, which closely resembles the “tippet” at Teheran described by Brydge. This carpet is said to be ten and one half feet long by six feet wide, and to be made up of strings of pearls, except that a border, eleven inches wide, and also center ornaments, are worked out in diamonds. Some writers assert that this costly ornament was originally intended by the late Mahratta Khandarao as a covering for the tomb of Mohammed. Others state that it was designed as a present for a woman of whom he was enamoured, but that the British resident interfered, claiming that the wealth of Baroda was not sufficient to warrant such an expensive gift on the part of the ruler. This ornament is now retained among the regalia at Baroda, and is probably the most costly pearl ornament in the world, its value being estimated at several million dollars.

SUMMER PALACE IN 1860. Many superb pearls were among the precious objects in the Yuen-Min-Yuen or Summer Palace in Pekin at the time of its capture by the European forces in 1860. Numbers of these were lost in the confusion of the sacking and plunder, when the soldiers’ pockets were filled and the floors were strewn with jewels, beautiful objects of gold and silver, rich silks and furs, carved jade, lapis lazuli, etc. Some of the pearls found their way to Europe, and especially to France and England. They were of good size and luster and were mostly yellowish in color. Unfortunately, many were crudely drilled with large holes, and had been strung on gold wires by which they were attached to the idols they decorated at the time they were stolen. More than one hundred, each over thirty grains in weight, were received in England, and sold at an average of nearly one thousand dollars.

[Illustration:

PEARL CARPET OR SHAWL OF THE GAIKWAR OF BARODA ]

A similar booty came from the spoliation during the war between China and Japan in 1894, and during the Boxer outbreaks of 1901, and quantities of pearls, often large and of fine color, but a little the worse for wear, were brought to the United States and Europe by the soldiers and officials, and also by traders and travelers who obtained them in China. The pendant figured is one of these objects.

THE GOGIBUS PEARL. This famous pearl, said to have been the largest in Europe, weighed no less than 126 carats (504 grains). It was pear-shaped and of fine orient, and was brought from the West Indies, in 1620, by François Gogibus, a native of Calais, who sold it to Philip IV of Spain. As no match could be found for this magnificent gem, it was mounted as a button in the royal cap.[513]

LA REINE DES PERLES. The large round pearl of the French crown jewels which is listed in the inventory of 1791 at 200,000 francs, was purchased in 1669[514] for the sum of 40,000 livres, from a gem dealer named Bazu, who had traveled in the East at about the time of Tavernier’s voyage. In the inventory of 1691, it is described as “a virgin pearl, perfect, round, and of fine water,” weighing 27½ carats and valued at 90,000 livres. When the greater part of the jewels were stolen from the Garde-Meuble in 1792, we are told that the thieves took a pearl inclosed in a gold box on which was written: “The queen of pearls.” This was most probably the one we have described and there is reason to believe that this same pearl came later into the possession of the Zozima brothers, and was called La Pellegrina.

LA RÉGENTE. This name was bestowed upon a big, ovate pearl which was in the collection of the French crown jewels. This pearl, which weighs 337 grains, was furnished in November, 1811, by the court jewelers, Messrs. Noitat, for a tiara, worn by Marie Louise, Empress of France. By order of the emperor, Napoleon III, the pearl was taken out of the tiara and mounted, in August, 1853, by the Paris jeweler Lemounier into a brooch. This great brooch, with “La Régente” as the central gem, was bought by Faberge & Company of St. Petersburg, Russia, for the Princess Youssoupoff at the “Vente des Diamants de la Couronne” in 1887.

LA PELLEGRINA. For nearly a century there has been in Russia one of the most lovely pearls in the world; this is La Pellegrina, formerly owned by the Zozima brothers of Moscow, who were antiquarians of note in St. Petersburg. In 1818 a small book of forty-eight pages was written about this beautiful gem by G. Fischer de Waldheim, vice-president of the Imperial Medico-Chirurgical Academy, probably the only book ever devoted to a single pearl. According to this writer, La Pellegrina was purchased at Leghorn by one of the Zozima brothers from an English admiral who had just returned from India. It combines all the requisites of perfection: it is absolutely spherical and has never been pierced; its luster, its silvery sheen, make it appear almost transparent, and for a pearl of this high grade, it is of remarkable size, weighing 111½ grains.

The Zozima brothers retained it in a sea-urchin shell mounted in gold and with a convex lens as cover; this was contained in a silver box, and this in turn in another box studded with gems. Although the lens enlarged the appearance of the pearl, it detracted from its beautiful form, giving it an oval shape. But when removed from the triple inclosure, it rolled about like a globule of quicksilver, and surpassed that metal in whiteness and brilliancy.

Everything that is beautiful and perfect takes such possession of the beholder that words become insufficient to express his feelings; and that is what happened to me in the case of La Pellegrina of Zozima. One must have seen an object of this kind in order to appreciate the impression it makes. As an evidence of this, I shall note the last visit which I made to the owner in company with several distinguished persons.

After having examined many curious medals and coins, and also some pearls which exceeded in size the one of which I treat, and after they had received their due meed of admiration, La Pellegrina appeared, rolled upon a sheet of paper by the owner’s little finger. Attention and admiration was depicted on every face; a perfect silence reigned. It was only when the pearl had been removed very carefully lest it should slip away, and was again triply enclosed, that we recovered the power of speech and could unanimously express our admiration.[515]

As it had been stated that this pearl was in the possession of the Princess Youssoupoff, Mr. Henry W. Hiller of New York, who was in St. Petersburg, courteously made inquiries and was successful in obtaining a view of the two splendid pear-shaped pearls. These are almost exactly alike, but neither of them can well be La Pellegrina, since this is a round pearl; possibly the one on the right may be La Peregrina.[516]

[Illustration:

THE HOPE PEARL. WEIGHS 1800 GRAINS

Actual size ]

The owner of La Pellegrina in 1818, Z. P. Zozima, died in Moscow at a great age, in 1827. He was a Greek dealer in curiosities and gems, who had resided in Moscow for a long time, and had many clients among the nobility of Russia. It is stated that a few months before his death the best pieces of his collection, including La Pellegrina, were stolen from him by a compatriot.

MOSCOW PEARL, 1840. The German traveler, Johann Georg Kohl (1808–1878), in the account of his travels in Russia, relates an interesting incident connected with a beautiful pearl in the Imperial Treasury. Shortly previous to 1840, a rich Moscow merchant died in a convent, whither he had retreated after the manner of the wealthy pious ones of his nation. Feeling the approach of age, he had given up the toils of business to his sons. His wife was dead, and the only beloved object which even in the cloister was not separated from him was a large, beautiful, oriental pearl. This precious object had been purchased for him by some Persian or Arabian friend at a high price, and, enchanted by its water, magnificent size, and color, its perfect shape and luster, he would never part with it, however enormous the sum offered. He himself inhabited an ordinary cell in the convent; but this object of his love reposed on silk in a golden casket. It was shown to few persons, and favorable circumstances and strong recommendations were necessary to obtain such a favor. A Moscow resident reported the style and manner of the ceremony. On the appointed day he went with his friends to the convent, and found the old gentleman awaiting his guests in his holiday clothes. Their reception had something of solemnity about it. The old man went into his cell and brought out the casket in its rich covering. He spread white satin on the table, and, unlocking the casket, let the precious pearl roll out before the enchanted eyes of the spectators. No one ventured to touch it, but all burst into acclamations, and the old man’s eyes gleamed like his pearl. After a short time it was returned to the casket. During his last illness, the old gentleman never let the pearl out of his hand, and after his death it was with difficulty taken from his stiffened fingers.

There seems to be a great similarity between the description of this pearl and that of La Pellegrina, although we have been unable to verify our surmise as to their identity.

THE HOPE PEARL. In the first half of the last century, Henry Philip Hope, a London banker, brought together a great collection of gems, among which were many pearls. The most famous of these was the often-described Hope pearl, one of the largest known; the value of which, however, is not in proportion to its size, owing to its irregular formation. As described in the catalogue of the Hope collection, published in 1839, this oriental pearl is of an irregular pear-shape, weighs 1800 grains, or three ounces, measures two inches in length, and in circumference four and one half inches at the broadest and three and one fourth inches at the narrowest end. The color at the larger end is of a bronze or a dark green copper tint, this gradually clearing into a fine white luster for within one and one half inches of the smaller end. This baroque pearl was firmly attached to the shell, and it yet shows the point of attachment, which has been polished so as to correspond to the remaining portion. It is attractively mounted, the smaller end being capped with an arched crown of red enameled gold set with diamonds, rubies, and emeralds.[517] After remaining in the Hope jewel collection at the South Kensington Museum for many years, it was sold at auction, at Christie’s, in 1886, when that collection was placed on the market. This pearl is now held by Messrs. Garrard & Company of London, at the price of £9000.

The Hope collection also contained about 148 pearls of good form. Notable among these were the following: (a) a conical pearl weighing 151 grains, cream-white in color, from Polynesia; (b) a bouton pearl of 124 grains, bluish-white at the top and encircled by a dark bronze color; (c) an oval cream-colored pearl, weighing ninety-four grains, from the South Seas; (d) an eighty-nine-grain, roughly spherical pearl, one side bluish and the other of a light bronze; (e) an eighty-five-grain, acorn-shaped, bluish-white pearl, with a band of opaque white near the base; (f) an oval conch pearl, pink in general color and somewhat whitish at the ends, weighing eighty-two and one fourth grains; (g) another conch pearl, seventy-seven and one half grains, button-shaped, yellowish white with a slight shade of pink; (h) a seventy-six-and-one-half-grain drop-shaped pearl of a _chatoyant_ aspect, of white color shaded with red, purple, and green; and (i) a pear-shaped Scottish pearl of thirty-four and three fourths grains, of a milky bluish caste, slightly tinged with pink.

VAN BUREN PEARLS. Among the collections of the United States National Museum are two pendant pearls each weighing about thirty grains, and a necklace containing 148 pearls with an aggregate weight of 700 grains. These were presented in 1840 to President Van Buren by the Imam of Muscat. They were deposited in the vaults of the Treasury Department, where they remained until a few years ago, when, by the order of the Secretary of the Treasury, they were transferred to the custody of the National Museum where they now are.

[Illustration:

HER GRACE, THE DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH ]

THIERS NECKLACE. In the galleries of the Louvre at Paris may be seen a pearl necklace formerly owned by the wife of President Thiers (1797–1887), consisting of 145 pearls in three rows. The weights of the three largest individual pearls are fifty-one, thirty-nine, and thirty-six grains, respectively. The aggregate weight is 2079 grains, and the value at the time of their deposit was estimated at 300,000 francs. This is on a base of $2.02; at a higher valuation the figures would be:

$148,947 = $71.64 per grain; base, $5 238,315 = 114.63 per grain; base, 8

the last being very probably nearer to the correct value of the necklace at the present time.

TIFFANY QUEEN PEARL. Doubtless the most famous pearl ever found within the limits of the United States, and likewise one of the choicest, is the well-known “Queen Pearl,” found in Notch Brook near Paterson, New Jersey, in 1857.[518] In form it is a perfect sphere, and weighs ninety-three grains. The history of the discovery and of the sale of this beautiful gem is set forth on page 260.

THE BAPST PEARLS. Very practical is the account given by Streeter of a pair of magnificent spherical pearls exhibited at the Paris Exhibition in 1878 by Messrs. Bapst of Paris. One of these pearls—then weighing 116 grains—was purchased by Mr. Streeter in 1877, and by him sold to a leading merchant of London, who skilfully removed a blemish on it, reducing it to 113¾ grains in weight. After holding it for some months, it occurred to him that it would match a pearl sold by Hunt and Roskell to Dhuleep Singh about fifteen years previously. On comparison, the two were found to match perfectly, one weighing 113¾ and the other 113¼ grains. The two were eventually sold early in 1878 “for £4800, which was even then much below their value, and to-day they would be worth £10,000. They were exhibited in the great Paris Exposition in 1878, where they attracted universal attention, and were pronounced by connoisseurs to be the most extraordinary pair of pearls ever seen in Europe. They were sold from the exhibition to an individual for a very large sum.”[519]

THE “SOUTHERN CROSS.” The “Southern Cross” is an unusual pearl or rather cluster of pearls which attracted much attention twenty years ago. It consists of nine attached pearls forming a Roman cross about one and one half inches in length, seven pearls constituting the shaft or standard, while the arms are formed by one pearl on each side of the second one from the upper end. The luster is good, but the individual pearls are not perfect spheres, being mutually compressed at the point of juncture and considerably flattened at the back. If separated, the aggregate value of the individual pearls would be small, and the celebrity of the ornament is due almost exclusively to its form. This striking formation was exhibited at the Colonial and Indian Exhibition at London in 1886, and later at the Paris Exhibition in 1889, where it was the center of interest, and obtained a gold medal for the exhibitors. It is reported that an effort was made to bring about its sale at £10,000, the owners suggesting that it was especially appropriate for presentation to Leo XIII, on the occasion of his jubilee in 1896. The writers have been unable to obtain information as to its present location.

Much information relative to the “Southern Cross” was volunteered by Henry Taunton in the very interesting account of his wanderings in Australia. He presents apparently reliable statements showing that it was found on March 26, 1883, off Baldwin Creek in Lat. 17° S. and Long. 122° E., by a boy named Clark, in the employ of James W. S. Kelly, a master pearler. When delivered to Kelly, it was in three distinct pieces, but the boy reported that it was in one piece when he found it a few hours before. Kelly sold it in the three pieces in which he received it for £10 to a fellow pearler named Roy; Roy sold it for £40 to a man named Craig, and he sold it to an Australian syndicate.

However, according to Taunton’s positive statement, there were only eight pearls in the cluster when it was sold by Kelly in 1883, and to make it resemble a well-proportioned cross—the right arm being absent—another pearl of suitable size and shape was subsequently secured at Cossack and attached in the proper place to the others, which, in the meantime, had been refastened together by diamond cement, thus making three artificial joints in the present cluster. “As if to assist in the deception, nature had fashioned a hollow in the side of the central pearl just where the added pearl would have to be fitted; and—the whole pearling fleet with their pearls and shells coming into Cossack about this time—it was no difficult matter to select a pearl of the right size and with the convexity required. The holder paid some ten or twelve pounds for the option of selecting a pearl within given limits; and then once more, with the aid of diamond cement and that of a skilful ‘faker,’ this celebrated gem was transformed into a perfect cross.”[520]

MORGAN-TIFFANY COLLECTION. Probably the most interesting assortment of American pearls is the Morgan-Tiffany Collection in the American Museum of Natural History, New York. The excellence of this collection lies, not in the high cost of any individual pearl, but in its illustrating in a comprehensive manner the great variety, colors, and forms of American pearls. Not only are the many varieties of fresh-water pearls represented, but likewise abalone pearls from the Pacific coast, conch pearls from the Gulf of Mexico, and a good assortment of pearly concretions from edible oysters and clams of the Atlantic coast.

This collection contains 557 species of white and colored Unio pearls, four multicolored, five mallet-shapes, 166 baroques, thirty-nine hinge pearls, twenty pearlaceous masses, thirty-four clam (Venus) pearls, fifteen abalone pearls, eleven conch pearls, and twelve oyster (Ostrea) pearls. The collection was exhibited in two parts, the first at the Paris Exposition of 1889, and the second at the Paris Exposition of 1900. On each occasion a gold medal was awarded.

COUNT BATTHYANI’S PEARL. A curious history is connected with a beautiful black pearl[521] which was at one time in the possession of Count Louis Batthyani, the premier of the revolutionary government of Hungary. The count was shot in 1849, by the orders of a court-martial, and on the eve of his execution he gave the pearl, which he had worn mounted on a scarf-pin, to his trusty and faithful valet. The latter left it to his son, who, when in straightened circumstances, sought to raise money upon the pearl. The pawnbroker of the small town was distrustful of its value and took it to Budapest for appraisal. There the suspicions of the authorities were aroused, an investigation was ordered, and it was finally discovered that the pearl had been stolen one hundred and fifty years before from the English crown. The English government redeemed it for the sum of £2500 ($12,500). How it came into the possession of Count Batthyani is a mystery; probably he purchased it from some antiquarian.

In 1900 there was shown in Paris one of the most important black pearls of any time, a pear-shaped pearl of forty-nine grains, of a most wonderful black color with a green sheen, as perfectly formed as though it had been turned out of a lathe; it did not terminate in a point at the small end, but was slightly flattened. It was so beautiful an object that it almost seemed it should never be drilled for mounting. This pearl ultimately sold for more than $30,000, and it is probably the finest black pearl that has ever reached the European markets.

According to a personal communication from E. Z. Steever, governor of the District of Sulu, the largest pearl that he has seen in the islands belongs to the sultan, and is now in the possession of Hadji Butu, former prime minister. It is an oblate spheroid, there being a trifling difference between the two diameters. The upper hemisphere is very beautiful; the lower one has a few minute, black specks which are superficial and could be easily removed, the pearl not having been treated since it was taken from the oyster. This pearl measures five eighths of an inch at its greatest diameter and is said to weigh twelve carats (forty-eight grains). Hadji Butu informed Governor Steever that the sultan had refused $25,000 for the pearl in Singapore.

The Nordica pearl is the finest abalone of which we have any record. It weighs 175 grains, is a drop pearl of a greenish hue, with brilliant red fire-like flashes, and serves as a pendant to the famous collection of colored pearls belonging to the beloved and admired American prima donna, Madam Nordica.

At the International Exposition in Paris in 1889, Mr. Alphonse Falco, president of the Chambre Syndicale, exhibited a round pearl, white and lustrous, weighing seventy grains, and valued at 50,000 francs.

Augusto Castellani, the well-known Italian jeweler of Rome, in the year 1868, during the Papal regime, executed a crown for King Victor Emmanuel II. This crown was destined for the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, in Jerusalem, and on it is a pearl which, although slightly irregular, is as large as the famous Gogibus pearl.

A remarkable golden-yellow pearl from Shark’s Bay, West Australia, is in the possession of a New York lady; it weighs thirty and one half grains, is perfectly round, and is without a flaw or blemish.

CROWN JEWELS OF FRANCE. The collection of gems known as the Crown Jewels of France owed its origin to Francis I (1494–1547). While in Bordeaux, on his way to meet his bride, Eleanor of Austria, sister of Emperor Charles V, Francis created by letter patent the Treasure of the Crown Jewels, giving to the state a number of his most valued diamonds, under the condition that at each change of sovereign a careful inventory should be made. The original collection consisted of six pieces of jewelry valued at 272,242 “_écus soleil_,” or about $700,000. The crown jewels have passed through many vicissitudes in the course of time. A number of the gems were at various times pledged as security for loans made in France and Italy, and it is said that in 1588, during the reign of Henry III, all the jewels disappeared from the royal treasury. Henry IV strove to regather the scattered ornaments, but it was only in the reign of Louis XIV that the collection became really important. At the time of the French Revolution, in 1791, an inventory was made by the order of the National Assembly.

[Illustration:

THE MADAM NORDICA COLLECTION OF COLORED PEARLS

The Nordica drop pearl weighs 175 grains ]

The jewels were then deposited in the Garde-Meuble, where they were exposed to public view. Either they were very carelessly guarded, or the guardians were in collusion with a band of thieves, for the room wherein they were kept was entered on five successive nights, and when the theft was finally discovered only about 500,000 francs’ ($100,000) worth of the gems remained. Many of the most valuable objects were, however, traced and recovered. Napoleon I, when he became emperor, made every effort to enrich the treasure, and purchased gems to the value of 6,000,000 francs ($1,200,000), and subsequent rulers added to the collection on various occasions.

At the time of the official inventory in 1791 the entire collection of pearls was estimated at about 1,000,000 francs ($200,000). The finest specimen in the collection was a splendid round pearl weighing 109¼ grains[522] and estimated at 200,000 francs ($40,000), or $366 per grain, on a base of $3.35. Then came two pear-shaped pearls of a fine orient and well-matched, weighing respectively 117¾ and 113 grains, and valued at 300,000 francs ($60,000) or $260 per grain, on a base of $2.25. In addition to the above there were twenty-five separate round pearls which had constituted the necklace of the queen; they ranged in weight from 36 to 165½ grains, and were valued at about 90,000 francs ($18,000). Beside the pear-shaped pearls to which we have alluded, there were two other pairs, each valued at 32,000 francs ($6400) for the two pearls; they averaged about 100 grains in weight. In addition to these there were two weighing respectively 175½ and 205¼ grains, each valued at 20,000 francs ($4000), and seven others ranging in weight from 92½ to 167 grains and valued at from 10,000 to 15,000 francs ($2000 to $3000). The best oval pearl was one weighing seventy-six and one half grains and estimated at 20,000 francs ($4000); there were two others, one of ninety-three grains, valued at 12,000 francs ($2400), and one of 121 grains, valued at 10,000 francs ($2000). We may also mention an egg-shaped pearl weighing 145¼ grains, estimated as worth 10,000 francs ($2000), and a button pearl of 198 grains entered at 15,000 francs ($3000). Beside these separate pearls there were eleven strings comprising 310 pearls, weighing in all 6778 grains and valued at but 29,400 francs (about $6000). The average per pearl was 95 francs ($19), less than one dollar a grain.

These pearls, according to their beauty, would now be worth from four to six times the valuation here given, so that the two large pear-shaped pearls of the French crown may be worth to-day $200,000 and the great round pearl from $100,000 to $250,000.

Many of these pearls were a century old. They were collected at a time when not as much attention was paid to their absolute perfection and beauty as at the present time, for there probably never has been a period when rare and perfect pearls, diamonds, or rubies have been appreciated so much more highly than those of mediocre quality.

RECAPITULATION

Weight in grains Value No. Average Total Francs U. S. currency Round Pearls 1 109¼ 200,000 $40,000 3 79 238½ 29,000 5,800 11 77¼ 804½ 37,300 7,460 7 64½ 450½ 19,400 3,880 14 53¾ 753¼ 23,100 4,620 43 34½ 1488½ 16,100 3,220 Pear-shaped 2 115⅜ 230¾ 300,000 60,000 4 99¼ 397½ 64,000 12,800 6 163⅛ 978¾ 92,000 18,400 8 114¼ 914¼ 55,000 11,000 47 42¼ 1989¾ 24,600 4,920 Oval 3 27 290½ 42,000 8,400 9 72½ 654¼ 20,100 4,020 11 43 473¾ 5,000 1,000 Egg-shaped 1 145¼ 10,000 2,000 Irregular 12 39½ 475¼ 7,300 1,460 Button 1 198 15,000 3,000 6 66¼ 398 4,900 980 Baroque 4 37½ 150¾ 1,500 300 Strings 310 21⅞ 6778 29,400 5,880 ——- ——— ——————— ——————— ———————— 503 35⅜ 17,919¼ 995,700 $199,140

[Illustration:

GRAND PEARL DIADEM OF THE FRENCH CROWN JEWELS

Containing 212 pearls weighing 2452 grains, and 1990 diamonds weighing 74 27–32 carats. Worn by the Empress Eugénie ]

After the downfall of Napoleon III and the proclamation of the French Republic, the jewels were inventoried, and, by a law passed December 10, 1886, it was decreed that a large part of the treasure should be sold at public auction. The sale was held in the Pavilion de Flore, a part of the Palace of the Tuileries, on May 12, 1887, and, very naturally, all the principal gem dealers and collectors were represented. A number of remarkable pearl ornaments were among the objects offered at this sale, one of the most beautiful being a diadem of an exceptionally artistic openwork design, adorned with large, round pearls and surmounted by a row of magnificent pear-shaped pearls. The total number of pearls in this diadem was 212, and their weight 2452 grains. It was sold for the sum of 78,000 francs ($15,600). The coronet which accompanied the diadem comprised 274 pearls, weighing 984 grains; the design was similar to that of the diadem, but the points consisted of a round and a pear-shaped pearl in alternation. This ornament realized the sum of 30,000 francs ($6000). A large brooch of very elaborate and beautiful design, beside a number of smaller pearls, comprised four fine, pear-shaped pendants, weighing 100 grains each, and two choice bouton pearls, and had in the center the famous pearl known as “La Régente,” which was purchased in 1811 for 40,000 francs ($8000). This splendid ornament brought the sum of 176,000 francs ($35,200). Four other brooches each contained seven pearls and many brilliants, the twenty-eight pearls having a total weight of 1496 grains, an average of more than fifty-three grains. Each brooch had two pearls surrounded with brilliants, and five large, pear-shaped pearls set as pendants. They were sold to different purchasers at prices ranging from 18,500 francs ($3700) to 43,000 francs ($8600), the four together realizing 113,500 francs ($22,700).

Six pearl necklaces were also offered. One of forty-seven pearls weighing 698 grains was sold for 34,600 francs ($6920), and two others, each consisting of fifty-eight pearls, with a total weight of 524 and 400 grains respectively, brought the sum of 22,300 francs ($4460) and 15,000 francs ($3000). Another necklace composed of thirty-eight round pearls and nine pear-shaped pendants, the total weight being 1612 grains, sold for 74,300 francs ($14,860). The two finest necklaces were broken up into a number of separate lots. One of them, consisting of 362 pearls and weighing in all 5808 grains,—an average of a trifle over sixteen grains,—was offered in four lots which together brought 295,800 francs ($59,160). The other necklace comprised 542 pearls weighing 6752 grains, and was disposed of in eight lots, realizing in all 331,800 francs ($66,360). Two bracelets adorned with 202 pearls and a number of small brilliants were purchased for the sum of 90,200 francs ($18,040). The total amount realized for the pearl ornaments was 1,261,500 francs ($252,300). There are several American ladies who own single strings of pearls which are of more value than the whole pearl parure of the Empress Eugénie.

Pearl parure of the crown jewels of France, worn by the Empress Eugénie, and sold at the Tuileries, May 12, 1887.

A diadem containing 212 pearls, weighing 2452 grains.

A coronet with 274 pearls, weighing 984 grains.

Four brooches, each containing four large pearls, two round, two pear-shaped, and three smaller ones, weighing in all 1496 grains.

A larger brooch comprising four large pear-shaped pearls, each weighing 100 grains. In the center is the pearl called “La Régente.”

Two necklaces each consisting of forty-seven pearls, with an aggregate weight of 698 and 1612 grains, respectively.

Two bracelets with 202 pearls, weighing 2000 grains.

Five buttons, three with nine and two with ten pearls.

A necklace of 542 pearls, weighing 6752 grains.

Another necklace of 362 pearls, weighing 5808 grains.

Two other necklaces, each containing fifty-eight pearls, the total weight being 400 and 524 grains, respectively.

SUMMARY OF THE PRINCIPAL PEARL ORNAMENTS FORMING THE PEARL PARURE OF THE FRENCH CROWN JEWELS SOLD AT PALACE OF THE TUILERIES IN MAY, 1887

Designation No. of pearls Aggregate weight Amount rec’d grains francs

1 necklace 362 5,808 295,800

1 necklace 542 6,752 331,800

1 necklace 47 698 34,600

1 necklace 58 524 22,300

1 necklace 58 400 15,000

1 necklace 47 1,612 74,300

2 bracelets 202 2,000 90,200

1 large diadem 212 2,452 78,000

1 coronet 274 984 30,000

1 brooch 45 1,200 176,000

4 brooches 28 1,496 113,500

———— —————— ———-———-—

Total 1875 23,926 1,261,500

IMPERIAL AUSTRIAN SCHATZKAMMER. The weights and values of the great gathering of pearls of the imperial Austrian Schatzkammer were carefully estimated by one of the authors and by his friends, and it is the first attempted inventory ever published.[523]

The imperial crown of the Holy Roman Empire, preserved in the treasury of the imperial Burg at Vienna, and known as the crown of Charlemagne, has in front seventeen pearls weighing 424 grains, of which two weigh fifty-six grains each. The remaining fifteen pearls average 20.8 grains. The values of these pearls are as follows:

Base $2.50 $5.00 $7.50 15 pearls, 20.8 grains $16,224 $32,448 $48,672 2 56–grain pearls 15,680 31,360 47,040 ——————— ——————— ——————— Total $31,904 $63,808 $95,712

[Illustration:

THE IMPERIAL AUSTRIAN CROWN

Made by order of Emperor Rudolph II, in 1604 ]

At the back of the crown there are eighteen pearls, weighing 180 grains. One of these has a weight of twenty-six grains; the remaining seventeen average 9.058 grains. The values estimated are as follows:

Base $2.50 $5.00 $7.50 17 pearls, 9.058 grains $3,487.55 $6,975.10 $10,462.65 1 pearl of 26 grains 1,690.00 3,380.00 5,070.00 ——————— ——————— ——————— Total $5,177.55 $10,355.10 $15,532.65

The pearls in the cross surmounting the crown have a weight of thirty-six grains.

The imperial cross is profusely ornamented with pearls in front, while the back consists simply of silver-gilt. There are three strings of pearls in the front running in each direction. The total weight of the pearls is 4092 grains; one weighing sixty-four grains, and the smallest two grains.

The crucifix of the Golden Fleece is ornamented only in front with pearls; these have a weight of but 136 grains.

The imperial Austrian regalia, dating from the time of Emperor Rudolph II, are also in the imperial Burg; some of the emperor’s jewels were sold at auction in Prague in 1728.

The crown is adorned with two rows of pearls, weighing respectively 960 and 840 grains; between these rows are pearls having a total weight of 440 grains, while the ornaments and eight large drops weigh 2052 grains. The largest pearl on this crown weighs 104 grains. It is drop-shaped and belonged to Rudolph II; it is slightly uneven and the color, although white, is not that of a new pearl, but this pearl has a positive history of three hundred and six years, and at the present time is probably the oldest known unchanged pearl with a direct and authentic record.

The imperial orb is studded with pearls weighing in all 1560 grains. Four of these weigh forty grains each, the others are of lesser size, the smallest weighing ten grains. The scepter is adorned with pearls to the weight of 300 grains.

In addition to these insignia and regalia there are in the treasury two magnificent pearl necklaces, deposited by Empress Maria Theresa in 1765. The first consists of a single string of 114 large-sized pearls with the “Baden Solitaire,” a diamond of 30 carats, as a clasp. Three of these pearls weigh from 92 to 100 grains each, and the whole string has a total weight of 3400 grains. This would give us the following values, the pearls averaging 29.82 grains.

Base $2.50 $253,432.12 5.00 506,864.24

The other necklace contains 121 pearls of a total weight of 3788 grains, arranged in three rows; these pearls average 31.3 grains, the largest weighing forty grains and the smallest ten grains. The necklace has a diamond clasp of 14–1⁄32 carats. The pearls are worth:

Base $2.50 $296,450 5.00 592,900 7.50 889,350

Two bracelets with brilliant clasps, belonging to the same set, and consisting of 240 medium-sized pearls weighing 2800 grains and averaging 11⅔ grains, have the following values:

Base $2.50 $81,658.80 5.00 163,317.60 7.50 244,976.40

There is also a pendant of six pearls, weighing 300 grains and averaging fifty grains; these pearls are worth:

Base $2.50 $37,500 5.00 75,000 7.50 112,500

Another necklace, bequeathed to the treasury by the late Empress Caroline Augusta, consists of eighty-six pearls disposed in two rows, the largest pearl weighing seventy-two grains and the smallest eight grains. The total weight is 2600 grains and the average, 30.2. This necklace is worth:

Base $2.50 $196,088.60 5.00 392,177.20 7.50 588,265.80

Still another necklace is composed altogether of black pearls, of which there are thirty, the largest weighing forty-eight grains and the smallest ten. The total weight of this necklace is 1040 grains, an average of 34.66 grains for each pearl. On a base of $5 this necklace is worth $180,150.

The diamond crown of the empress bears pearls to the total weight of 2000 grains; among them are four weighing 100 grains each. These pearls alone, on a $5 base, would be worth $200,000.

[Illustration:

THE GREAT SÉVIGNÉ OF THE FRENCH CROWN JEWELS

Containing “The Regent Pearl,” weighing 337 grains, and four pear-shaped pearls of 100 grains each; also 100 carats of diamonds ]

The total weight of the pearls in all these ornaments is 35,816 grains, equal to four and a half pounds, avoirdupois, and they are worth from $2,000,000 to $4,000,000.

The so-called crown of Charlemagne bears the inscription: “Chuonradus Rex Dei gratia Romanorum Imperator Aug.” It is believed to be a work of the twelfth century and originally the royal crown of Conrad III, king of the Germans (1093–1152), the first Hohenstaufen.[524] The arch is said to have been added to adapt this royal crown for use in the expected coronation of Conrad as emperor. He died, however, while making preparations for his journey to Rome.

The imperial vestments used in the coronation ceremonies of the Holy Roman Empire, were produced in the celebrated Hôtel de Tirâz, at Palermo. Roger II, King of Sicily (1096–1154), after a victorious campaign in Greece, brought back with him to Sicily a number of skilled silk-weavers and embroiderers, whom he established at Palermo. The imperial mantle is of a brilliant purple and bears an inscription, embroidered in gold and pearls, stating that the garment was made in the royal manufactory in the year 1133. Two pearl-embroidered representations of a lion, who has stricken down a camel and is about to tear it to pieces, also appear on this mantle. This symbol of royal power was used frequently by the Saracens, and it is said that Richard Cœur de Lion had this design embroidered on his saddlecloths.[525]

A fine collection of large baroque pearls is preserved in the Grüne Gewölbe (Green Vaults) in the palace at Dresden, which contains the treasures of the royal family of Saxony. Most of these were mounted during the eighteenth century by J. M. Dinglinger (1665–1731), the famous goldsmith to the Saxon Elector, King Augustus II of Poland, and who is sometimes called the German Cellini. A splendid specimen of his work is a vase of Egyptian jasper in the shape of a shell, bearing a representation of Hercules fighting with the Nemæan lion; this bears reference to the immense personal strength and power of Augustus II, whose portrait is painted in enamel on a mirror at the back. The pedestal is adorned with a great many precious stones, pearls, and enamel paintings in the shape of cameos representing the twelve labors of Hercules. A dragon is studded with emeralds and its back is formed of pearls, with a large sardonyx in the middle. Hercules and the lion are in enamel.

In the same collection may be seen the figure of a dwarf made by Ferbecq, who was one of the goldsmiths of King Augustus. The body of the dwarf is formed of a baroque pearl, which is studded with small diamonds. His sleeves and trousers are in black and green enamel; his hat is also of green enamel and on it is a string of diamonds. In his right hand the dwarf holds a spit and in his left a roast. On his left shoulder he bears a goose, the upper part of whose body is formed of a pearl; at his right side hangs a bottle also formed of a pearl. The gilded pedestal is ornamented with white enamel work on a pink ground. Above and below, it is set with white and yellow diamonds. Another figure, similarly formed of a large baroque pearl ornamented with gold and diamonds, shows a drunken vintager and his dog; and an exceedingly grotesque, ornamented baroque is said to bear a striking resemblance to Señor Pepe, the court dwarf of Charles II of Spain.

Exhibited at the Palace of Rosenberg at Copenhagen, are similar designs in which large baroques form the principal part of fish, birds, dragons, mermaids, etc. Prominent among them is the figure of a skater, executed by the jeweler, Diederichsen; it is said that this was made for Frederick VII, who died before it was accepted, and in 1895 it was presented to the museum.

A beautiful and costly figure of this nature was completed a year or two ago by the court jeweler, Alfred Dragsen, of Copenhagen. This is nearly four inches in height, and represents a female snake-charmer. A very long baroque pearl forms the body from the shoulders to the knees, and the head, arms, and the legs below the knees are of gold. The figure is ornamented with a diamond-studded garland, ruby necklace and earrings, and garters set with similar gems, a red enameled girdle ornamented with pearls, and golden anklets with black pearls. With a flute she charms a serpent twined about her body and grasped with the other hand.

What is said to be the finest collection of black pearls in all Europe is that belonging to the Duchess of Anhalt Dessau, Germany. It consists of three large caskets of black pearls that have taken a century to collect. It is traditional in the family that these pearls are never to be sold except as their last possession, since they know they will always find a purchaser.

A collection of pearls had been kept for many years in the Monte de Piedad of Mexico City, which it was claimed had been pawned by a friend of the Empress Carlotta, in order to provide her with money at the time of the assassination of Emperor Maximilian. These pearls were contained in a necklace and a pearl and diamond tiara, which were sewn upon cardboard covered with black velvet, and had the appearance of not having been disturbed for many years. The necklace consisted of old pearls, both of the so-called Madras and Panama varieties; in the center was a large diamond medallion from which pear-shaped pearls were suspended. It is believed that these pearls were part of Empress Carlotta’s marriage portion, and that they came from the Austrian crown jewel collection. None of them possessed much quality with the exception of one, a large pear-shaped pearl which was set at the base of the necklace and weighed eighty-four grains. The drilling of this pearl was of a very old style, being of that type in which a tube is inserted in the drill hole, through which a gold wire passes to hold the pearl; a diamond is then set at the base of the tube to disguise the drill mark. It is, however, possible that the pearl came from the East Indies, where large drill holes are usual.

[Illustration:

MADAM NORDICA ]

The pearls were sent in bond to the United States as a collection, and then to Europe, where they were sold separately, the pear-shaped pearl appearing again in the New York market in 1906. There has been some doubt as to these really being Carlotta’s pearls, but the Mexican account is fairly consistent, and it satisfactorily disposes of the newspaper romance in which it was claimed that Carlotta had taken these pearls with her to Europe and that they had been buried in a casket in the Adriatic Sea.

RECENT AUCTION SALES. In England and in France, more than in the United States, great auction sales of jewels are common. They are held in London, principally at Christie’s, originally a coffee house, established in 1880; and in Paris, at the Hôtel Drouot. Good prices are generally realized, as the buyers of the entire continent attend these great sales. The purchases are usually made by dealers who frequently do not neglect each other’s interests if private buyers are present. No matter how great may be the amount involved, no matter whether the collections consist of paintings, furniture, or jewels, there are always buyers, to a much greater extent than in the United States. The price for fine jewels may naturally vary a trifle in the different markets, according to the conditions of payment. It must evidently make an appreciable difference whether almost the entire amount is paid in cash or whether a credit of thirty days is extended, or one for a much longer period, in some countries for as long as one, two, or even three years.

While in the United States such sales of valuable jewels are very unusual, it has been a custom in England and in France for many years, in the settlement of estates, to sell not only the furniture, bric-à-brac, etc., but also the jewels. Sales of this kind are naturally calculated to attract not only the dealers, but also many rich collectors and connoisseurs, and as they are frequently widely advertised, and London and Paris are, at the most, but one to two days’ journey from all parts of Europe, many people attend, most of the private buyers being represented by their agents. By means of these sales many heirlooms, which have been handed down from generation to generation, often pass into the possession of strangers. In the matter of jewels, it has been frequently noticed that dealers are in the majority of cases the ultimate buyers, and it has also been inferred that when an outsider participates in the bidding, the prices are advanced to such an extent that it does not often appear profitable for him to buy in the face of such competition. All manner of people have had their estates disposed of in this way, and the list of these sales during the past twenty years is a striking one: royalty, nobility, merchants, and people in many other conditions of life find a place in it.

It is not an infrequent custom in London for solicitors to advance money on jewels, and when the payments are not forthcoming these jewels are sold. Hence, many sales appear at the larger auction rooms in which no name is given, the owners frequently being people of high degree.

On July 19, 1892, a necklace containing eighty-five graduated pearls of unusual size and quality, the property of the late H. W. F. Bolchow, M.P., was sold in London for the sum of £2500 ($12,500). Another necklace of 146 fine graduated pearls disposed in two rows, brought £2400 ($12,000); a single-row necklace of eighty-five pearls realized £1600 ($8000), and one of 118 pearls in two rows £1660 ($8300).

An exceptionally fine pearl necklace which belonged to her Grace the late Caroline, Duchess of Montrose, mother of the present Duke of Montrose, was sold at Christie’s on April 30, 1895. The necklace comprised 362 graduated pearls, arranged in seven rows of forty-four, forty-seven, forty-eight, forty-nine, fifty-two, fifty-eight, and sixty-four pearls, respectively. The amount realized for this ornament was £11,500 ($57,500).

On July 9, 1901, a pearl necklace, advertised as the property of “a French lady of rank,” and several other valuable pearl ornaments, were offered at Christie’s. It is supposed by many that these jewels belonged to Madame Humbert. The necklace was composed of six rows of graduated pearls consisting of fifty-five, sixty-one, sixty-seven, seventy-three, seventy-nine, and eighty-nine pearls, respectively, a total of 424, all of good color and luster. A London dealer considers that they owed their value mainly to skilful matching and fineness of color; they are perhaps a century old. As may be supposed, there were many bidders who competed eagerly for possession of this fine ornament, and it was at last adjudged for the sum of £20,000 ($100,000). While this was, up to that date, a record price in an auction room, it was by no means an exceptional figure for private sales; indeed, at about the time this necklace was sold, a London dealer disposed of another for £34,000 ($170,000).

A necklace, the property of the late Lady Matheson of the Lews, was sold at Christie’s, March 5, 1902. Well-matched and graduated round pearls, to the number of 233, were disposed in four rows, and strung with seed-pearls between. This necklace, which had been presented to Lady Matheson at the time of her marriage in 1843 by Sir Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy, Bart., brought the sum of £6800 ($34,000).

A pearl necklace, containing fifty-three fine and graduated pearls, was sold in London, June 9, 1902, for the sum of £2250 ($11,250). Another necklace of sixty-eight fine round pearls, one of which formed the clasp, brought £1580 ($7900). A beautiful pearl and brilliant pendant of open scroll design, with a large, round white pearl in the center, and a large, pear-shaped black pearl as drop, realized £800 ($4000), and a pearl collar of ten rows of round pearls brought £820 ($4100). A noteworthy offering at this sale was a rope of 135 pearls, an heirloom sold under the will of Lady Marianna Augusta Hamilton. These pearls had been given to Lady Augusta Anne Cockburn in 1769 on the occasion of her marriage to Sir James Cockburn, Bart., by her godmother, Augusta, Duchess of Brunswick, sister to George III. The rope was sold for £900 ($4500).

The pearls of Lady Dudley were sold at Christie’s on July 4, 1902. Among them was a magnificent necklace of forty-seven slightly graduated round pearls, of large size and unusually brilliant orient; their gross weight was 1090 grains. This necklace brought the sum of £22,200 ($111,000). A single pear-shaped pearl of the finest orient mounted with a diamond cap, as a pendant, and weighing 209 grains, was sold for £13,500 ($67,500). A rope of 222 graduated round pearls of the highest quality, weighing 2320 grains was purchased for £16,700 ($83,500), and a pearl and brilliant tiara brought £10,300 ($51,500). The entire casket of thirty-one lots realized £89,526 ($447,630).

At the sale of the jewels of Mlle. Wanda de Boncza, at the Hôtel Drouot, Paris, December 6, 1902, a fine necklace was disposed of for the sum of 150,000 francs ($30,000), and a rope of 100 small pearls realized 38,100 francs ($7620); the proceeds of the entire sale of these jewels were 1,249,578 francs ($249,915).

Among the Aqualia jewels, sold in London in 1903, was a pearl necklace that brought £4480 ($22,400).

The jewels of the late Marquis of Anglesey, an enthusiastic jewel and art collector, were disposed of at Christie’s on May 4 and 5, 1904. At the time of his death, the marquis was supposed to be a bankrupt, but the value of the gems which he had purchased had increased so rapidly that the sale realized the sum of £22,988 10s. ($114,942), more than enough to cover all the obligations of the estate. Of this amount a magnificent drop pearl, mounted as a scarf-pin, brought £4000 ($20,000); another drop pearl of the finest orient, weighing 105½ grains, but slightly cracked, was sold for £3700 ($18,500). Four other drop-shaped pearls, mounted as scarf-pins, were sold for £5220 ($26,100), one of them bringing £1720 ($8600). A single bouton pearl, used as a coat fastener, realized £980 ($4900), and a pearl trefoil was purchased for £580 ($2900). One fine large bouton pearl, set as a stud, was disposed of for £3000 ($15,000), and another somewhat smaller bouton, also set as a stud, brought £1600 ($8000).

A splendid necklace comprising forty-nine well-matched and graduated pearls of fine quality, weighing 563½ grains, was sold in London on June 29, 1905, for the sum of £4700 ($23,500). At the same sale a necklace of thirty-two graduated pearls, weighing about 890 grains, brought £2600 ($13,000).

On July 20, 1905, a pearl necklace comprising forty-five graduated pearls of fine orient, with a cabochon ruby clasp, the gross weight being 832 grains, was sold in London for £3150 ($15,750).

A fine pearl and brilliant pendant was disposed of at the sale in London, February 21, 1906, of the stock of Mr. E. M. Marcoso. This pendant was composed of one large white brilliant, weighing 18–1⁄32 carats, and a drop-shaped pearl weighing 75¾ grains. The ornament brought the sum of £2050 ($10,250).

A pearl necklace composed of 285 well-matched and graduated pearls disposed in five rows was sold in London on June 13, 1906, for the sum of £10,000 ($50,000). At the same sale a three-row necklace, with 213 graduated and matched pearls of fine orient, brought £3200 ($16,000), and a rope of 237 fine pearls realized £2800 ($14,000).

Among the jewels disposed of at a sale in London on July 11, 1906, may be mentioned a five-row pearl necklace of 445 graduated oriental pearls which was sold for £2500 ($12,500). Three other necklaces were offered at the same sale; one of fifty-five matched and graduated pearls of fine quality bringing £3400 ($17,000); one of fifty-seven pearls, £2700 ($13,500), and the other of 219 well-matched and graduated pearls realizing £2350 ($11,750). Still another necklace of 417 matched and graduated pearls arranged in five rows was sold for £4800 ($24,000). A splendid pearl drop, of the finest orient, brought £1650 ($8250), and a pearl rope of 191 oriental pearls, arranged so as to form three single-row necklaces, realized the sum of £3700 ($18,500), three fine black pearls, mounted as studs, were sold for £1000 ($5000). The most important necklace was reserved for the end of the sale; this was composed of forty-seven large oriental pearls, and was purchased for the sum of £10,000 ($50,000).

At the sale of the Massey-Mainwaring collection at Christie’s on March 18, 1907, a five-row pearl necklace consisting of 471 graduated pearls, with a bouton pearl in the center, was sold for £4600 ($23,000).

Another collection, sold at Christie’s, April 15, 1907, was the property of the late Mrs. Lewis-Hill, and the proceeds of the first day’s sale reached the heretofore unapproached total of £94,805 ($474,025), thus exceeding by $26,395 the amount obtained in one day by the sale of Lady Dudley’s jewels. Among the valuable pearls in this collection, we may mention a pair of large bouton pearl earrings, with small diamond tops, which brought £1180 ($5900). The enthusiasm and interest of the assembly were aroused by a necklace of forty-five large, graduated pearls of fine orient, with a bouton pearl and brilliant cluster snap; after spirited bidding this was bought for £6100 ($30,500). The greatest event of the day, however, was the appearance of a splendid rope of 229 pearls of very good form, well-matched and graduated. The opening bid was £10,000 ($50,000) and after a warm contest the pearls were finally acquired for the sum of £16,700 ($83,500). A necklace consisting of fifteen graduated drops, each formed of one bouton pearl, one brilliant, and one pear-shaped pearl drop, depending from a narrow band of small diamonds, drew forth a bid of £5000 ($25,000) and was finally awarded for the sum of £12,200 ($61,000). A pearl rope of 183 graduated and well-matched pearls realized £7200 ($36,000), and a fine pair of pearls set as earrings brought £3400 ($17,000). The crowded auction room, the keen competition among the bidders, and the amount obtained for these jewels are good indications of the firmness of the market at the present time.

[Illustration:

Copyright, 1907, by Theo. C. Marceau, N. Y.

MRS. GEORGE J. GOULD ]

At the sale of the jewels of Lady Henry Gordon-Lennox, held at Christie’s on May 12, 1907, a splendid necklace was offered. It comprised 287 graduated pearls of the finest orient, disposed in five rows, with a large circular pearl. This magnificent ornament was sold for £25,500 ($127,500).

On July 11, 1907, a splendid necklace of forty-nine graduated pearls, of fine luster and carefully matched, was sold at auction by Debenham and Storr of London, for the sum of £5600 ($28,000). At the same sale a single-row necklace of forty-five pearls brought £5300 ($26,500), and a rope of oriental pearls realized £4500 ($22,500).

At the auction sale of the collection of the late Bishop Bubics of Hungary, among other objects, a very handsome saber pouch was offered, of the style worn by the Hungarian hussars. It was of green silk and richly embroidered with hundreds of pearls of varying sizes. After a spirited competition this pouch was sold to Prince Esterhazy for 13,500 crowns ($2700). Some time after the sale a letter from the late bishop was found, containing the statement that he had borrowed the ornament from the jewel-room of the Princess Esterhazy. Naturally, Prince Esterhazy was not called upon to pay the amount of his bid. It is a gratification to know that at least one of the remarkable Magyar jeweled ornaments has escaped the cupidity of enterprising jewelers who have broken up so many of these ornaments for the gems which they contained.

A BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE PRINCIPAL GREAT PEARLS OF HISTORY

Weight

Charles the Bold’s Pearls. Three, each about 60 grains

Gomara Pearl, 31 carats 124 grains

Oviedo Pearl, 26 carats

(probably the Morales or Pizarro Pearl) 104 grains

La Peregrina 134 grains

Charles II’s Pearl, (nearly equal to La Peregrina)

Morales and Pizarro Pearl, 26 carats 104 grains

Rudolph II’s Pearl, 30 carats 120 grains

Tavernier’s Pearls:

Shah Sofi’s Pearl (estimated) 500 grains

Imam of Muscat’s Pearl, 12–1⁄16 carats 48¼ grains

Shaista Khan Pearl, 55 carats 220 grains

Great Mogul’s Pearls:

Peacock Throne Pearl 200 grains

Two pear-shaped, one about 70 ratis 186.2 grains

Olive-shaped pearl (estimated) 125 grains

One button-shaped, 55–60 ratis 146.3–159.6 grains

One round pearl, 56 ratis (gift of the Shah Abbas II) 148.9 grains

Round pearl (estimated)[526] 110 grains

Three yellowish pearls, 25–28 ratis 66.5–74.5 grains

One perfectly round pearl, 35½ ratis 94½ grains

Two perfectly shaped and equal, each 25¼ ratis 67.1 grains

La Reine des Perles 109¼ grains

Pearls of Maria Theresa’s Necklace (three) 92–100 grains

La Régente (now owned by Princess Yousoupoff) 337 grains

La Pellegrina 111½ grains

The Ynaffit, pear-shaped 143⅛ grains

Hope Pearl, drop-shaped baroque 1800 grains

Also in the Hope Collection:

Conical pearl 151 grains

Bouton pearl 124 grains

Oval pearl 94 grains

Roughly spherical pearl 89 grains

Acorn-shaped pearl 85 grains

Oval conch pearl 82¼ grains

Button-shaped conch pearl 77½ grains

Drop-shaped pearl 76½ grains

Pear-shaped Scotch pearl 34¾ grains

Van Buren Pearls:

Two, each about 30 grains

Also necklace 148 pearls 700 grains

Tiffany Queen Pearl, American 93 grains

Black bouton earring-pearl 88 grains

White bouton earring-pearl 93 grains

Bapst Pearls, two 113¼ and 113¾ grains

Round pearl of Paris Exposition of 1889 70 grains

Mme. Nordica’s Pearl (abalone) 175 grains

Great Bahama Conch Pearl 138¼ grains

The Queen Conch Pearl 90 grains

W. H. Moore’s Pearl (Arkansas pearl, brown) 122½ grains

Shark’s Bay Pearl, golden yellow 30½ grains

Rudolph II Crown Pearl, 26 carats 104 grains

Carlotta’s Pearl, pear-shaped 84 grains

Marquis of Anglesey’s Pearl, drop-shaped 105½ grains

Black pear-shaped pearl (Lower California) 49 grains

XVII

THE ABORIGINAL USE OF PEARLS, AND THEIR DISCOVERY IN MOUNDS AND GRAVES

XVII THE ABORIGINAL USE OF PEARLS, AND THEIR DISCOVERY IN MOUNDS AND GRAVES

The use of pearls by the aborigines of the territory now comprised in the United States is proven by their appearance in the mounds and certain graves of pre-Columbian date. This is of great interest in view of the unique system of burial and the great variety of objects buried with the pearls. It is evident from the quantities discovered in some of the mounds that a very great number of pearls, many of large size, must have been owned by these aborigines, and they were evidently quite expert in the art of drilling them. Pearls must have been freely used for ornamental purposes, and it is clear that many rivers in this region must have produced them in great numbers, when we consider that in all probability the mussels were taken only as they were required for food or for bait in fishing, and had probably reached their full growth.

It is not unlikely that pearls were used on this continent for a long period, and they may have been in use centuries before any employment was made of them in Europe. In the age of the mound-builders there were as many pearls in the possession of a single tribe of Indians as existed in any European court. We have no means of ascertaining the precise date of any of these burials, and there are no historical records relating to this region, such as were kept in Mexico as well as in Europe and Asia. No trace has been found of the employment of pearls, either for decoration or ornament, by the aborigines of Europe or Asia; either they did not use them or else the pearls have entirely passed away in the course of twenty or more centuries. We do know, however, that neither pearls nor Unio shells were used by any of the lake-dwellers of Switzerland or the adjacent countries.

Many eminent archæologists have investigated the finding and history of the pearls of the mound-builders of Ohio and Alabama, especially Squier and Davis, F. W. Putnam, Warren K. Moorehead, C. C. Jones, W. C. Mills, and Clarence B. Moore. The discoveries made up to 1890 were fully treated by one of the writers in several pamphlets (one of them, “Gems and Precious Stones of North America”).

It is not unlikely that the Indians of the Atlantic coast may have known of pearls from the common clam as well as from the edible oyster. The former may have often contained pearls weighing from fifty to one hundred grains each, as at that period the mollusks were permitted to attain their full growth, and perhaps were not eaten except when they were as small as little-neck clams; the larger ones were sought for the purple spot which held the muscle, and was used for wampum. We have no record of the finding of pearls in any graves north of Virginia, as the many graves opened in the past century have failed to reveal them, nor has the use of pearls been mentioned by any of the early writers. They may have been worn, but if so they have passed away or may have been mistaken for ashes if they had decrepitated.

The first English settlers found the Indians of the tidewater region of what now constitutes the Middle States using pearls quite freely and esteeming them among their favorite treasures and ornaments. Captain John Smith, and all the early chroniclers of the Virginia colony, have given many accounts of this aboriginal use of pearls.

In view of the general interest awakened by the tercentenary of the founding of Jamestown, and the exposition in commemoration thereof, the “American Anthropologist” devoted its first number for 1907 principally to topics relating to the Virginia Indians.[527] Among these articles is one of much interest by Mr. Charles C. Willoughby, of the Peabody Museum at Cambridge, Massachusetts, dealing with the tribes occupying tidewater Virginia at the time of the first colonization, their habits and customs, their distribution, and their subsequent history of diminution and almost of extinction. These were a branch of the Algonquian stock, and extended as far south as the Neuse River in North Carolina. To the south and west they were hemmed in by tribes of Iroquoian and Siouan race, and on the north they were separated from other hostile Indians by the Potomac River and Chesapeake Bay. The powerful confederacy under Powhatan comprised some thirty tribes or “provinces,” covering most of the tidewater region of Virginia proper. To the greater chiefs, John Smith states that tribute was paid, consisting of “skinnes, beads, copper, pearle, deere, turkies, wild beasts and corne.”[528] Many other references in this article confirm and illustrate this general statement, especially regarding pearls, both as to their use by the living and their deposit with the remains of the dead.

In the account given of the native clothing, the outer mantles are described, made usually of deerskin with the hair removed, and bordered with a fringe. These were often “couloured with some pretty work, ... beasts, fowle, tortayses, or such like imagery,”[529] or adorned with shells, white beads, copper ornaments, pearls, or the teeth of animals.[530] Strachey describes a wonderful cloak made of feather-work, belonging to an Indian princess, the wife of a deposed chief, Pipisco; with it she wore “pendants of great but imperfect couloured and worse drilled pearles, which she put into her eares,” besides a long necklace made of copper links.[531]

With regard to such ornaments, Mr. Willoughby says (p. 71) that “the ears of both sexes were pierced with great holes, the women commonly having three in each ear, in which were hung strings of bones, shell, and copper beads, copper pendants, and other ornaments. Captain Amidas met the wife of a chief who wore in her ears strings of pearl beads as large as ‘great pease’ which hung down to her middle.[532] The husband of this woman wore five or six copper pendants in each ear. It was a common custom for the men to wear a claw of a hawk, eagle, turkey, or bear, or even a live snake as an ear ornament.”

“Bracelets and neck ornaments of various kinds of beads were common. Beads of copper seem to have been most highly valued in the early colonial period. These were made of ‘shreeds of copper, beaten thinne and bright, and wound up hollowe,’ and were sometimes strung alternately with pearls which were occasionally stained to render them more attractive.[533] Beads of polished bone or shell were strung into necklaces either alone or with perforated pearls or copper beads. Some of these chains were long enough to pass several times around the neck. Necklaces of such construction as to be easily identified were worn by messengers as a proof of good faith. Powhatan gave Sir Thomas Dale a pearl necklace, and requested that any messenger sent by Dale to him should wear it as a guaranty that the message was authentic.”[534]

“Pearls of various shapes and sizes were comparatively common, but symmetrical pearls of uniform size were more rare. Strachey writes of having seen ‘manie chaynes and braceletts (of pearls) worne by the people, and wee have found plentie of them in the sepulchers of their kings, though discoloured by burning the oysters in the fier, and deformed by grosse boring.’ One of Hariot’s companions obtained from the Indians about five thousand pearls, from which a sufficient number of good quality and of uniform size were obtained to make a ‘fayre chaine, which for their likenesse and uniformitie in roundnesse, orientness and pidenesse of many excellent colours, with equalitie in greatnesse, were verie fayre and rare.’[535]

“Those who have examined the thousands of pearls from the Ohio mounds, to be mentioned later, can readily understand these conditions. The pearl beads from the mounds vary in diameter from about an eighth of an inch to nearly an inch, the great majority being small and irregular, although there are many among them of good form and value. It is probable that most of the Virginia pearls were obtained from the fresh-water mussel (Unio)”; not unlikely from the common marine clam (_Venus mercenaria_), or the common oyster (_Ostrea virginica_).

As regards the burial of pearls with the dead and their use in religious rites, curious and quite full accounts are given by Strachey, Smith, Hariot, and Beverley.[536] There was a “temple,” also occupied as a residence by one or more priests, in the territory of every chief. This building was usually some eighteen or twenty feet wide, and varied in length from thirty to one hundred feet, with an entrance at the eastern end, and the western portion partitioned off with mats to form a sort of sanctuary or “chancel.” Within this were kept the dried bodies of deceased chiefs, and an image of the god, called Okee, made in the shape of a man, “all black, dressed with chaynes of perle.” Full descriptions of these idols and their manufacture are given by Hariot and Beverley, also of the process of preserving the remains of the chiefs.[537] After the body had been disemboweled, the skin was laid back and the flesh was cut away from the bones. When this operation was completed, the skeleton, held together by its ligaments, was again inclosed in the skin, and stuffed with white sand, or with “pearle, copper, beads, and such trash sowed in a skynne.”[538] It was then dressed in fine skins and adorned with all sorts of valuables, including strings of pearls and beads. The same kinds of treasures were also deposited in a basket at the feet of the mummy.

Captain Smith describes the temple of Powhatan, at Uttamussack, which was in charge of seven priests, and was held in great awe by “the salvages.” At a place called Orapaks, was also his treasure-house, fifty or sixty yards long, frequented only by priests, where he kept a great amount of skins, beads, pearls, and copper, stored up against the time of his death and burial. A vivid account is given of the four grotesque images that stood guard at the corners of this building, all made “evill favouredly according to their best workmanship.”[539]

The use of pearls as ornaments, and their deposit with the remains of chiefs and persons of distinction, have already been described as familiar among the Indian tribes of tidewater Virginia, in the notes above cited from early explorers and colonists. It is a curious circumstance, however, that this habit does not appear to have extended in that part of the country much beyond the dominions of Powhatan, as no pearls have been noted in the Indian graves in Maryland. This statement, in reply to a letter of special inquiry, is made by Dr. P. R. Uhler, of the Peabody Institute of Baltimore, who has been making very careful studies of all aboriginal remains in that region, for the Maryland Academy of Sciences.

It would seem from this and other evidence, that the use and appreciation of pearls must have been in some way a tribal matter, familiar to some and not to others, of the Indian peoples. In the Mississippi Valley, the ancient population known as the mound-builders, by some regarded as a distinct and earlier race, and by others as of true Indian stock, although much more advanced in arts and culture, have left in their mounds most remarkable quantities of pearls. But here again, the same feature appears, that these treasures are not found wherever there are mounds, but only in certain regions. Of these, by far the most celebrated is that of the Scioto and Miami valleys, in Ohio. Outside of these, no large amounts have been found, and only at a few localities are they met with at all.

The valleys of the Miami and Scioto rivers and their tributaries contain many remarkable mounds and “earthworks,” which have attracted much attention, and have been more or less explored at different times, with increasing care and thoroughness as archæological science has advanced. It may be well to give a brief, general account of these investigations and some leading features of the mounds as a whole, before going into

## particulars as to the occurrence of pearls.

The first important and scientific study of these remarkable structures was that conducted in the early forties by Dr. Edwin H. Davis and Mr. E. George Squier, and published in their celebrated and standard work entitled “Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley,” issued by the Smithsonian Institution in 1848. This book and the “Correspondence” in regard to the mounds by the same writers, published in 1847, were the first works issued by the Smithsonian Institution.

According to Squier and Davis,[540] two quarts of pearls were originally deposited in one of these mounds. The writers consider that the pearls were probably derived from the fisheries in the southern waters, and they regard their presence in the Ohio mounds as a proof of “an extensive communication with southern and tropical regions and a migration from that direction.”

A number of pearls or pearl beads from the Ohio mounds and which formerly belonged to the Squier and Davis collection, are now in the Blackmore Museum at Salisbury, England. According to a communication from Dr. H. P. Blackmore, director of the museum, these pearls, which originally formed five necklaces, have been much injured by the action of fire at the time the bodies of those interred in the mounds were burned. Mr. Blackmore considers that the greater part of the pearl beads are of mother-of-pearl cut from some large shell, made into a round shape and perforated, but, after very careful examination, he is of the opinion that about ten may be classed as natural pearls. Their present color is a dull, leaden gray, rather lighter than the “black pearl” of commerce. The size of these pearls or beads varies from four millimeters to twenty millimeters in diameter. One of the necklaces consists of thirty-three beads well graduated, but of a dead white color from the

## action of the earth.

A quarter of a century later, when the Centennial Exposition was in preparation, the Smithsonian Institution undertook the formation of a public exhibit illustrating American archæology, and engaged Prof. F. W. Putnam, of Cambridge, Massachusetts, to open and examine some of the most remarkable of the mounds described by Squier and Davis. These explorations were continued for some years, partly for the government and partly for the Peabody Museum of Archæology at Cambridge, and their results were exhibited at the Columbian Exposition in 1893. The mounds explored were chiefly in the valley of the Little Miami, and

## particularly those known as the Turner group.

A very important series of explorations was also carried on by Mr. Warren K. Moorehead, covering the years from 1887 to 1893, largely in preparation for the Columbian Exposition. These investigations were mainly in the Scioto valley, in the counties of Ross, Franklin, and Pickaway, Ohio. Among the most important results then obtained were those from the mounds of the “Porter” and “Hopewell” groups, in Ross County.

Since that time, much valuable work has been done by Mr. Moorehead and others, and particularly under the auspices of the Ohio State Archæological and Historical Society. The latest and most complete investigation was made for this society in 1903, by its curator, Prof. William C. Mills, in the Harness mound, seven miles north of Chillicothe, Ohio, near the Scioto River, in Ross County. This locality had been previously explored in part, by Professor Putnam in 1885, and Mr. Moorehead in 1896; it was now systematically examined down to the original surface at every point.

Squier and Davis divided these ancient monuments into four classes: (1) Altar mounds, which contain what appear to be altars, and are also called hearths, of stone or hardened clay; (2) Burial mounds, containing human bones; (3) Temple mounds, with neither altars nor bones, but seeming to have had some special religious significance; and (4) Anomalous mounds, including “mounds of observation” and others of mixed or uncertain character. The burials are found to be of two kinds, simple interment and cremation; and these are sometimes met with in the same mound.

This classification has been generally followed in describing these ancient structures, although the whole subject is obscure and difficult, from our ignorance of the purposes and conditions of their formation. In many of the mounds of the first two classes especially, not only have pearls been found, but quantities of interesting and remarkable objects, many of which have been brought from distant points, and prove clearly the existence of an extensive intertribal commerce at a remote period. Galena from Illinois and Wisconsin, mica from North Carolina, obsidian from beyond the Rocky Mountains, and sea-shells from the Gulf coast, are among these objects, and particularly native copper from Lake Superior, from which many articles were fashioned by hammering. Pearls are extremely abundant, and were at first supposed to have been brought from the coast, and may have been the pearls of the common clam and the common oyster, the pearls being found in opening the mollusks for food; but the recent development of pearl hunting in the western rivers, where the fresh-water mussels (Unios) are so abundant and produce such beautiful pearls, shows that these treasures were undoubtedly gathered,

## partly, if not wholly, in the region where the mounds exist. The

enormous numbers found are, indeed, no source of surprise, as such quantities of pearls have been obtained, for over twenty years past, from the same regions. The mollusks are still abundant in all the streams of the Mississippi Valley, except where they have been reduced or exterminated by the reckless methods of pearl hunting employed where the “pearl fever” has prevailed.

It is quite possible that the fresh-water Unios were not sought for their pearls alone, but were also used as food, and perhaps as bait for fishing. They were evidently gathered in great quantities, as is shown by the old heaps of shells found along the banks of streams at many points; and doubtless there are multitudes of such heaps that have never been observed. They are known as far north as Idaho, as communicated by Dr. Robert N. Bell, State mineralogist, and they extend still farther north, as noted by Dr. Harlan I. Smith, in his “Preliminary Notes on the Archæology of the Yakima Valley.”[541] He says: “Small heaps of fresh-water clam-shells were examined, but these being only about five feet in diameter and as many inches in depth, are hardly to be compared to the immense shell-heaps of the coast.”

These Unio shell-heaps are frequent in the South, and some of the Spanish chroniclers of De Soto’s expedition in 1540–1541, describe the gathering and cooking of the mussels, and the finding of occasional pearls therein. The same writers also give glowing accounts of the pearls possessed by the natives. Some of these accounts may be exaggerated, but they cannot be wholly so. It would seem that some of the pearls may have come from marine shells, and others from those of the rivers and streams; but there are few pearl-producing shells on our own coasts, and it is not very likely that there was any trade or intercourse with the West Indian Islands, where marine pearls occur freely.

Albert H. Pickett, in his “History of Alabama,” refers to the accounts of De Soto’s historian, Garcilasso de la Vega, and holds that the pearls which he noted were evidently from the Unios of Alabama. “Heaps of mussel shells,” he says, “are now to be seen on our river banks wherever Indians used to live. They were much used by the ancient Indians for some purpose, and old warriors have informed me that their ancestors once used the shells to temper the clay with which they made their vessels. But as thousands of the shells lie banked up, some deep in the ground, we may also suppose that the Indians in De Soto’s time, everywhere in Alabama, obtained pearls from them. There can be no doubt about the quantity of pearls found in this State and Georgia in 1540, but they were of a coarser and more valueless kind than the Spaniards supposed. The Indians used to perforate them and string them around their necks and arms like beads.”[542]

The use of fragments of these shells in tempering the clay for pottery, alluded to in the preceding paragraph, is well known. Prof. Daniel S. Martin describes an old village site in South Carolina, near the Congaree River, a few miles south of the city of Columbia, where the ground had been plowed, and along the furrows the soil was gleaming with brilliant pearly fragments of Unio shells, intermingled with bits of pottery.

Mr. Clarence B. Moore discovered pearls pierced for stringing in several of the mounds at Moundville, Alabama. He also found a sheet-copper pendant, elongated oval in outline, with an excised repoussé decoration, embracing a swastika within a circle, and a triangle. This pendant, which lay near the skull of burial No. 132, bears a perforated pearl nearly seven millimeters in diameter and weighing about nine grains; it is fastened to the pendant by a piece of vegetable fiber that passes through the pearl. With another burial (No. 162), the skeleton of an adult, was an elliptical gorget of sheet-copper decorated with a pearl.[543] In a personal communication Mr. Moore states that all the pearls found by him in the mounds were very much disintegrated by the lapse of time; he also writes that he has never found any shells immediately with the pearls, although masses of Unio shells were often met with in the mounds. He believes the shell-fish had been used for food.

Unio shell-heaps exist likewise on the shores of the inland lakes of Florida, and in middle Georgia and Alabama; and several of them on the banks of the Savannah River, above Augusta, are fully described by Colonel Charles C. Jones.[544] He says: “In these relic-beds no two parts of the same shell are, as a general rule, found in juxtaposition. The hinge is broken, and the valves of the shell, after having been artificially torn asunder, seem to have been carelessly cast aside and allowed to accumulate.”

Thus, in addition to the historical evidence, physical proof is abundant of the pearl fisheries of the aboriginal tribes of the South. In order to ascertain the precise varieties of shells from which the southern Indians obtained their pearls, Colonel Jones invited an expression of opinion from a number of scientists whose studies rendered them familiar with the conchology of the United States. Their responses throw considerable light upon this inquiry, though with some curious variation.

Prof. William S. Jones, of the University of Georgia, says that he has seen small pearls in many of the Unios found in that State.

Prof. Jeffries Wyman, on the other hand, after a careful and extensive series of excavations in the shell-heaps of Florida, failed to find a single pearl. “It is hardly probable,” he remarks, “that the Spaniards could have been mistaken as to the fact of the ornaments of the Indians being pearls, but in view of their frequent exaggerations, I am almost compelled to the belief that there was some mistake; and possibly they may not have distinguished between the pearls and the shell beads, some of which would correspond with the size and shape of the pearls mentioned by the Spaniards.”

Prof. Joseph Jones, whose investigations throw much valuable light upon the contents of the ancient tumuli of Tennessee, says: “I do not remember finding a genuine pearl in the many mounds which I have opened in the valleys of the Tennessee, the Cumberland, the Harpeth, and elsewhere. Many of the pearls described by the Spaniards were probably little else than polished beads cut out of large sea-shells and from the thicker portions of fresh-water mussels, and prepared so as to resemble pearls. I have examined thousands of these, and they all present a laminated structure, as if carved out of thick shells and sea conchs.” This point will be referred to again.

Dr. Charles Rau[545] writes: “I learned from Dr. Samuel G. Bristow, who was a surgeon in the Army of the Cumberland during the Civil War, that mussels of the Tennessee River were occasionally eaten ‘as a change’ by the soldiers of that corps, and pronounced no bad article of diet. Shells of the Unio are sometimes found in Indian graves, where they had been deposited with the dead, to serve as food during the journey to the land of spirits.”

Dr. Brinton saw on the Tennessee River and its tributaries numerous shell-heaps consisting almost exclusively of the _Unio virginianus_ (Lamarck). In every instance he found shell-heaps close to the water-courses, on the rich alluvial bottom-land. He says: “The mollusks had evidently been opened by placing them on a fire. The Tennessee mussel is margaritiferous, and there is no doubt but that it was from this species that the early tribes obtained the hoards of pearls which the historian of De Soto’s exploration estimated by bushels, and which were so much prized as ornaments.”[546]

A source has recently been pointed out whence small pearls, and perhaps some fine specimens, could have been obtained by the Indians of Florida, and in considerable quantities. In the Unios of some of the fresh-water lakes of that State, there were found not less than 3000 pearls, most of them small, but many large enough to be perforated and worn as beads. From one Unio there were taken eighty-four seed-pearls; from another, fifty; from a third, twenty, and from several, ten or twelve each. The examinations were chiefly confined to Lake Griffin and its vicinity. It is said that upon one of the isles in Lake Okeechobee are the remains of an old pearl fishery, and it is proposed to open the shells of this lake, which are large, in hopes of finding pearls of superior size and quality.

The use of the pearl as an ornament by the southern Indians, and the quantities of shells opened by them in various localities, make it seem strange that it is not more frequently met with in the relic-beds and sepulchral tumuli of that region; but, after exploring many shell- and earth-mounds, Colonel Charles C. Jones failed, except in a few instances, to find pearls.[547] A few were obtained in an extensive relic-bed on the Savannah River, above Augusta, the largest being four tenths of an inch in diameter, but all of them blackened by fire. Many of the smaller mounds on the coast of Georgia do not contain pearls, because at the period of their construction the custom of burning the dead appears to have prevailed very generally; hence, it may be that the pearls were either immediately consumed or so seriously injured as to crumble out of sight.

This absence of pearls tends somewhat to confirm the opinion that beads made from the thicker portions of shells that were carved, perforated, and brilliant with nacre, were regarded by the imaginative Spaniards as pearls. More minute investigation, however, will doubtless reveal the existence of pearls in localities where the pearl-bearing shells were collected. Perforated pearls have been found in an ancient burying-ground located near the bank of the Ogeechee River, in Bryan County, Georgia; and many years ago, after a heavy freshet on the Oconee River, which laid bare many Indian graves in the neighborhood of the large mounds on Poullain’s plantation, fully a hundred pearls of considerable size were gathered.

It seems quite clear that many of the pearls reported by the early Spanish voyagers were really such, although it is well known also that shell beads have been found in mounds in connection with pearls; but the numbers found in Ohio, by Professor Putnam, Mr. Moorehead, and others, leave no room for doubt in this matter. That the Indians of the South also had these pearls, both drilled and undrilled, is beyond question.

The same fact comes to view, however, in these various accounts, that has been alluded to already, _viz._, that the use of pearls among the aborigines appears to have been local, and probably tribal. All the fresh waters of North America contain Unios, especially in the Mississippi basin and in the South, and all the Unios are more or less pearl-bearing; but it is only at certain points that pearls are found deposited in ancient graves, sometimes, however, in extraordinary quantities.

Father Louis Hennepin relates that the Indians along the Mississippi wore bracelets and earrings of fine pearls, which they spoilt, having nothing to bore them with but fire. He adds: “They gave us to understand that they received them in exchange for their calumets from nations inhabiting the coast of the great lake to the southward, which I take to be the Gulph of Florida.”[548]

The statement here made, that the Indians perforated their pearls only “with fire,” evidently refers to the use of a heated copper wire, or point, as mentioned by Pickett and others of the early explorers. This point is of importance, as apparently indicating a marked difference between the Indians met with by the first European visitors, and the mound-building people of an earlier time, among whom the perforation was made with small stone drills. On this point, a recent letter from Prof. Wm. C. Mills, who has conducted the very full exploration of the Harness mound in Ohio, is of interest. He describes the small and carefully-wrought flint drills, which he found, and believes to have been made and used for this purpose. In size and form they answer all requirements; they are delicate little implements, somewhat T-shaped or gimlet-shaped, an inch and a quarter long; the narrow boring part is about an inch in length and tapers from one eighth of an inch to quite a fine point; the wider upper end is abruptly expanded into the transverse handle, which is about a quarter of an inch thick, _i.e._, lengthwise of the instrument, and half an inch in span, _i.e._, across, so as to give a good hold for the fingers to rotate the drill, just as in an ordinary gimlet.

Passing now to the actual discoveries of pearls in the mounds of the Mississippi Valley, these will be reviewed in the order of the successive explorations in which they were made known. As already stated, the only region where any large amounts have been encountered, is that of the Scioto and Miami valleys in Ohio. Even here, pearls are found only at certain points, and though the numbers are great, the graves which contain them are few. They were apparently buried only with the remains of individuals of especial distinction, probably either chiefs or eminent medicine men. The accounts of recent explorations in these mounds bring to mind very forcibly the statement before cited from Captain John Smith, as to Powhatan’s treasure-house, where all his most valued articles, including pearls, were collected and kept, in preparation for his death and burial. Pearls appear also to have been used only by the more cultured tribes, and were kept in the larger and more prosperous communities exclusively. They are confined to the great “mound groups,” and are not found in isolated mounds. The tumuli of northern Ohio, the hill mounds, and the village sites along the smaller streams, have yielded practically none.

According to the manner of burial, the pearls vary greatly in their present condition. Where they have been placed with cremated bodies, they are, of course, much damaged, being blackened and largely decomposed. Otherwise, although injured in color and luster, the mere fact of burial in the ground has not entirely ruined them. They are generally perforated, so as to be strung or attached to garments, and traces of both these methods of use are sometimes clearly shown.

The term “pearl beads,” often employed by writers, is uncertain in meaning; as it may refer either to actual pearls, bored so as to be strung, or to imitations thereof made from pearly shell. With regard to this point, although such quantities have been obtained, there seems to have been very little close examination as to their structure, which would at once indicate the facts, according as the minute layers of the pearly material are concentric or not. The only distinct testimony is that we have cited above from Prof. Joseph Jones,[549] who states that he has examined large numbers, and found them to be apparently cut from shells. He makes the suggestion that they may have been carved from the thicker portions of the fresh-water Unios. This is not only probable, but would go far to solve the mystery of the enormous numbers found, as compared with anything known of the yield of genuine pearls by these mollusks, even with all the pearl hunting of recent years. An interesting fact bearing directly on this question is the discovery in the Taylor mound, at Oregonia, Warren County, Ohio, of several Unio shells in which had been made a circular hole, two thirds of an inch in diameter, either for some ornamental use of the shell or to extract pieces to be shaped into beads. These may have been made in either of two ways. Firstly, by breaking pieces of the shell from one of the valves, as a lapidary “roughs out” a piece of gem material before he begins to grind it into shape; or, secondly, by cutting out a circular disk of shell by means of a hollow copper drill or a hollow reed, just as they perforated hard pieces of quartz or granite for pipes, or as they trephined circular disks from the skulls. Decorated disks of Unio shell were also found in the same mound. If the ancient people made beads in this manner, there is little difficulty in accounting for the quantities described, especially in connection with the evident gathering of Unios on a large scale, as shown by the widely distributed shell-heaps already described. They certainly did make beads from various marine shells, and these are found with the pearl beads in many of the mounds, as particularly noted by Professor Jones, cited above, and by others.

In the recent exploration of the Harness mound, by Professor Mills, a very curious discovery was made of imitation pearls of a kind never before met with; these were made of clay, modeled apparently after the larger natural pearls associated with them, and after being baked hard, had been “covered with a flexible mica,” so as to resemble pearls.[550] The mica was a silvery mica that may have been burned and would pulverize into a gray powder with a pearly luster, as almost all micas are too resilient to be attached in any other way.

Taking up now the history of pearl discovery in the mounds, the first definite record goes back to about 1844, when perforated pearls were found by Dr. Edwin H. Davis[551] on the hearths of five distinct groups of mounds in Ohio, and sometimes in such abundance that they could be gathered by the hundred. They were generally of irregular form, mostly pear-shaped, though perfectly round ones were also found among them. The smaller specimens measured about one fourth of an inch in diameter, but the largest had a diameter of three quarters of an inch.

The next great discovery of these Unio pearls was in the Porter group of mounds, in the Little Miami Valley, explored by Prof. Frederick W. Putnam, and Dr. Charles L. Metz, who procured over 60,000 pearls, nearly two bushels, drilled and undrilled, undoubtedly of Unio origin; all of them, however, decayed or much altered, and of no commercial value. In 1884 these scientists examined the Marriott mound, where they found nearly one hundred Unio shells, and among other objects of special interest six canine teeth of bears, that were perforated by a lateral hole near the edge at the point of greatest curvature of the root, so that by passing a cord through this, the tooth could be fastened to any object or worn as an ornament. Two of these teeth had a hole bored through near the end of the root on the side opposite the lateral perforation, and the hole countersunk in order to receive a large spherical pearl, about three eighths of an inch in diameter. When the teeth were found, the pearls were in place, although chalky from decay. Upward of 250 pearl beads were found here, concerning which they say: “The pearl beads found in the several positions mentioned are natural pearls, probably obtained from the several species of Unios in the Ohio rivers. In size they vary from one tenth of an inch to over half an inch in diameter, and many are spherical. They are neatly drilled, and the larger from opposite sides. These pearls are now chalky, and crumble on handling, but when fresh they would have formed brilliant necklaces and pendants.”[552]

[Illustration:

Necklace of fresh-water pearls and cut shell beads, from Mound No. 25 ]

[Illustration:

Bear-tooth inlaid with fresh-water pearl from the neck of skeleton No. 209, Mound 23 ]

[Illustration:

Perforation in charred, cut fresh-water pearl; weight, 5569 grams ]

[Illustration:

Perforated fresh-water pearl; weight, 22,955 grams ]

FRESH-WATER PEARLS FROM HOPEWELL GROUP OF MOUNDS, ROSS COUNTY, OHIO

It is easy to see, even at a glance, that most of those in this great deposit of 60,000 are true pearls. Many are very irregular in form, and quite a number are the elongated, somewhat feather-shaped, “hinge pearls,” that are found in the region of the hinge teeth of Unios. A large and interesting exhibit of these is shown in the Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago. But thousands of spherical pearls were also obtained, from the “altars” or “hearths” of mounds belonging to the first division of Squier and Davis’s classification, above noted. From the Turner group, in Clermont County, in the Little Miami Valley, Professor Putnam obtained for the Peabody Museum as much as half a bushel of pearls of this character. As these had been exposed to fire, nearly all were blackened, some cracked, and all greatly impaired.[553]

The next great series of explorations were those conducted by Mr. W. K. Moorehead in the Scioto Valley, in the counties of Ross, Franklin and Pickaway, Ohio. He opened and examined a number of mounds, and found pearls or pearl beads in ten or twelve of them, but the larger deposits were confined to certain limited districts, which seem to have been occupied by tribes more advanced in culture and in traffic than the rest. In these, the pearls and also objects of other kinds brought from a distance, are principally found. The scattered mounds, not associated with any village or community sites, have few of these valuable objects.

But even where they are found freely, pearls were apparently used or possessed by only a few individuals. Mr. Moorehead investigated in all 117 burial mounds, containing about 1400 skeletons. Pearls were met with in only seven of these mounds, and in connection with but twenty-two skeletons. These, however, yielded a total of 2600 pearls, apparently from Unios, the numbers found with single skeletons varying from 18 to 602, an average of 118. It thus appears that in Mr. Moorehead’s researches, pearls were found in about one mound out of seventeen, and in these, with about one skeleton out of eight.

From “altar mounds,” pearls have been in some cases taken in vast numbers. Professor Putnam’s discoveries are mentioned above; and Mr. Moorehead obtained tens of thousands from two altars or hearths in the Hopewell group, which will be described hereafter.

When found in the burial mounds with skeletons, pearls are generally seen to have been placed at the wrists or ankles, or about the neck, or in the mouth. Sometimes they are found on copper plates, and occasionally they show evidence of having been sewn or attached to a garment. Particulars on these points will be given further on. Mr. Moorehead has also found bears’ teeth, set with pearls, as Putnam and Metz did in the Marriott mound, lying with or near skeletons.

In the case of the altar mounds, there seems to have been a different procedure, not a burial, but a great funeral sacrifice in honor of some very distinguished person, in which treasures of every kind, including great stores of pearls, were consumed, or meant to be. Of this, Mr. Moorehead says, in a letter to the author: “In the case of all altar offerings, a fire had been kindled ... and all these things were heaped upon it. They were utterly ruined, save a few; ... those at the top were not so much affected as those at the bottom.”

Mr. Moorehead’s investigations already mentioned were in the years 1888 to 1891 inclusive; he next took up especially the remarkable Hopewell groups of mounds, in 1891–1892, and explored these extensively for the archæological exhibit at the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893, at Chicago.[554] This was his most important and elaborate investigation, and will be described in some detail. In 1896, he made a partial exploration of the Harness mound near Chillicothe, which has been fully completed more recently by Prof. William C. Mills, and will also be described further on.

The investigations made in the Hopewell group of mounds were recorded by Mr. Moorehead in a series of articles in the “Antiquarian.”[555] He gives a general account of the remarkable region of ancient remains in Ross County, Ohio. The State archæological map shows the “mound belt,” as a strip of country some fifteen miles wide and one hundred miles long, extending through the Scioto Valley, from about Columbus to Portsmouth. The ancient works noted on this map, though not all that exist there, yet number over 900 mounds, 24 village sites, 36 circles of earth and stone, 87 other inclosures and works of similar character, and 31 sites of gravel or kame burials. Five groups of mounds in particular exist in Ross County, all of them showing a “high culture” state. “All of the lower Scioto Valley,” says Mr. Moorehead, “was occupied by a mound-building tribe ranking higher in intelligence and numerically stronger than that of any other section of the whole Ohio region.” Among the many remarkable ancient works in that part of the country, the five groups in Ross County are the most important, and among these, the Hopewell group is preëminent. The first published notice of them, which appeared in 1820, was by Mr. Caleb Atwater.[556] Squier and Davis examined and described them in the years 1844–1846, and obtained large and notable collections from them which are now in England, in the Blackmore Museum at Salisbury, as not enough interest in such matters then existed in America to induce the purchase and retention of these valuable treasures. From that time until 1891, when Mr. Moorehead began his explorations there, no one had paid much attention to these mounds, all published accounts being derived from those of Squier and Davis. They described them under the name of Clark’s works, from the owner of the farm within which they lie; but the property has since passed into the possession of Mr. M. C. Hopewell. From this fact, yet more from his kind and intelligent interest in the work of exploration, his name has been given to the group.

The Hopewell works are situated on the north fork of Paint Creek, about one third of a mile from the stream. The intervening space is low bottom-land, and the works stand upon a terrace about twenty feet high, from which again there is a rather steep rise of thirty or forty feet more, to the general level of the country. They consist of a nearly quadrangular inclosure, about half a mile in length (strictly 2800 feet), and half as much in width, occupying the entire breadth of the terrace. At its eastern end, this large inclosure opens into a second and smaller one, an exact square of 850 feet. Within the main inclosure are one or more village sites, a number of separate mounds, and especially a group of several connected elevations, together known as the Effigy mound, these being much the highest and most conspicuous, and themselves surrounded by a semicircular inclosure. The whole suggests a defensive work, or “walled town”; but the wall, although strongly and carefully built, partly of stones and partly of hard clay, is so low—only from four to six feet in height—that it could not have been a very formidable obstacle to a vigorous assault; and, moreover, the whole is overlooked and “commanded” from the bluff above it. The mounds, as Squier and Davis examined them, were pronounced to be mainly of the sacrificial or “altar” type. Since their very full and accurate account was published, time and the hand of man have reduced and almost obliterated portions of the wall and some of the smaller mounds, while the creek has slightly shifted its course. When they wrote their description, it was a little nearer than it is now; and they then expressed the belief that it had formerly washed the base of the terrace where the works are located.

Mr. Moorehead’s exploring party, aided by Dr. H. T. Cresson, began operations at this notable group of mounds in August, 1891, and continued them through about seven months, without interruption, much of the time in severe winter weather. The work was carried on under authority of the Anthropological Department of the Columbian Exposition of 1893, at Chicago. All the most interesting and important of the very extensive body of relics obtained was displayed there; and the whole remains as a permanent exhibit in the Field (Columbian) Museum of Natural History.

The Hopewell group comprises in all some twenty larger and smaller mounds within the general inclosure, besides a few unimportant ones outside of it, and the main connected group in the special inclosure near the center. These latter form together what is known as the Effigy mound, a name based upon its general resemblance to a reclining human figure; but it is not constructed on a human or animal design, as are the effigy mounds properly so called. After working for a time upon some of the others, and finding much interesting material, Mr. Moorehead set his men to work upon the Effigy mound, and spent most of his time and effort upon that remarkable structure, of which he made a very thorough and systematic exploration.

The Effigy mound is about 500 feet long and 220 feet wide, and rises 23 feet above the general surface at its highest point. It proves to belong to the fourth class of Squier and Davis, those of mixed character, with both altars and burials, as it contained three large altars and as many as 175 skeletons, nearly all of adults.

Reviewing now the entire exploration of the Hopewell group, the first mound opened, known as No. 17, was of considerable size, nearly ninety feet in diameter, and was notable for a layer of mica—some 3000 sheets—that extended almost entirely through it. It contained a rude altar, with ashes and bones, some copper implements, bone needles, sharks’ teeth, and nearly 200 pounds of bright galena. The next examined, No. 18, contained several decayed skeletons, and a good example of an “altar,” together with ornaments cut from human skulls. The next, No. 19, had an altar of earth, partially hardened by heat, which was taken out entire and boxed. It was roughly cubical, about three feet each way. In the “bowl,” or concavity, on the top of it, were various minor implements, with some galena and mica, etc. The next attacked was a large mound, No. 2, which had been partly opened by Squier and Davis, nearly fifty years before. It is remarkable for its immense store of roughly chipped flint disks, over 8000 in number, of which 600 were taken out by Squier and Davis, and most of the remainder by Mr. Moorehead. It would seem to have been a place of storage for

## partly worked material of this kind, to preserve it from the hardening

effect of long exposure to the air.

Several other mounds yielded little of importance, save that from the soil on the site of No. 1, which had been obliterated, were taken a number of fragments of bone, curiously ornamented with finely carved patterns. Two others, Nos. 4 and 5, had peculiarly constructed altars, of which an extended account is given.

The first discovery of pearls by Squier and Davis was made in their mound No. 9, now obliterated by a railroad. With the pearls, they report as found on the top of a small altar, broken instruments of obsidian, cut patterns of mica, vestiges of cloth, etc.

Mr. Moorehead’s first discovery of pearls was in a small but interesting mound, No. 20, about forty feet in diameter. It had been reduced by plowing to only some two feet in height; and its contents would ere long have been broken into and scattered by the same process. This was strictly a burial mound, and soon yielded five skeletons, one of them being that of a child, nine or ten years of age. With these bones were numerous objects: two large shells made into cups for drinking, several copper articles and ornaments, among them a broad copper bracelet encircling the right wrist, and several hundred pearl and shell beads and small shells. The same mound yielded later some other children’s remains, but with no important objects. A finely polished pipe and two bear’s teeth coated with copper were also found.

Mr. Moorehead points out the evidences of a long occupation of this site by a cultured tribe, who had commerce with the South and West more than with the North or East.

Work was then begun, in the latter part of September, on a large and important mound known as the Oblong (No. 23), 155 feet long by 100 feet wide, with an elevation at present of 14 feet, and originally of perhaps 20 feet. This mound yielded thirty-nine skeletons, lying at depths varying from eight and three fourths to eleven feet below the present surface, nearly on the base-line of the mound. Some of these were surrounded by boulders, others were much charred, and a good deal of variety exists in their condition, all of which Mr. Moorehead describes

## particularly. All manner of relics and objects were obtained, including

pearl beads and a splendid copper ax of seventeen pounds’ weight, of course entirely too large for any practical use, and hence plainly a ceremonial object or badge of some high distinction. Among the most remarkable of the many interesting objects discovered here were the large canine teeth of bears,[557] which had not only been drilled through near the base of the root for suspension, like many others, but had also been partly drilled at the middle of one side, and a large pearl inserted into the cavity. These singular ornaments were found at the neck of a skeleton, and had evidently been worn as pendants. It will be remembered that almost identical specimens were found by Professor Putnam in the Marriott mound in the Miami Valley.[558] The one here figured is now in the Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, with most of the other Hopewell material.

Another somewhat similar example of the taste and art of the same people, also preserved in the Field Museum, came from the mound known as No. 25. This consisted of a large figure of a bird, in hammered copper, fifteen and seven eighths inches long, with a pearl inserted to form the eye. The head is quite expressive, and the tail-feathers well represented, although the wings and the general proportions are rude. This is shown about one third of the actual length.

The Effigy mound was next examined. The first trial shafts proved it to be evidently of human construction, and not of glacial origin, as some had supposed. One or two open cuts were then begun, using teams with a large shovel until indications of burials were found, when the further work would be carried on by hand, with extreme care.

After about two weeks, in which time several skeletons were unearthed, with some shells, beads, and copper ornaments, a burial of extraordinary character was reached on November 14. Here was lying a skeleton which the newspapers soon reported as “The King of the Mound-Builders.” It was much decayed, but was covered and surrounded with a wealth of relics. The skull was surmounted by a tall cap or helmet of copper, from which extended a wonderful pair of antlers, exactly imitating those of a deer, but made of wood and covered with copper. The whole skeleton, to quote the words of Mr. Moorehead, “glittered with mica, pearl, shell, and copper.” Plates of the latter were above, beneath, and around it, with bears’ and panthers’ teeth, etc., and over 1000 beads, many of them of pearl. The succeeding month, during which the last cut was finished down to the base-line, and a third one much advanced, revealed numerous skeletons, with abundant objects of the same general kind, including a remarkable separate deposit of copper articles of curious workmanship, ornaments of cut mica, and one of cannel coal, fragments of meteoric iron and celts made therefrom, and “many thousand pearl and shell beads.” The latest trophy here unearthed was another enormous ax of copper, nearly two feet in length, unparalleled in the world.

The first altar was next reached; it was about four by five feet, and some six inches deep, and had an immense variety of objects upon it and around it, nearly all entirely ruined by the fire. Among them were pearl beads.

The largest altar had been not only heaped with all sorts of valuables, but they had been piled around it so as to form a sloping mass of twelve feet or more in diameter at the base. Among these was a layer of mica plates of extraordinary size, eighteen or twenty inches in diameter. It is not easy even now to obtain sheets of mica of such dimensions, in any quantity. Carvings and effigies in bone and slate, rock crystal arrow-heads, obsidian knives, etc., etc., damaged and broken by heat, were cemented together by half-melted copper. The pearl and shell beads taken out amid the ashes are estimated at not less than 100,000.

The Effigy mound, “a place for ceremony, for sacrifice, for burial,” as Mr. Moorehead calls it, thus combining the character of the first three classes distinguished by Squier and Davis, is seen not to have been constructed at one time, but to have developed gradually through perhaps a long period. The several altars, the more important burials, the store of copper objects, each was surmounted by a small and separate mound. “These may have been built on the level dance or ceremonial floors, from time to time. When the entire floor was covered, the people brought large quantities of earth and gravel, heaped it on top of the irregular contour of the small mounds, and this formed the present Effigy.”

The population that occupied the main inclosure was apparently not very large, as compared with some other of the important earthworks, such as Fort Ancient, or Madisonville. From the distribution of village-site debris, Mr. Moorehead estimates that there could have been only from two hundred to three hundred lodges, even if these were all occupied at the same time. But the indications of traffic and of art show that it must have been a community advanced in culture beyond most of its neighbors. Mr. Moorehead believes it to have been a sort of capital among a body of allied or affiliated tribes who made and occupied the similar earthwork towns of the “mound belt,”—a center of production and distribution of art objects, and a place for the holding of great religious ceremonials. It may be noted, however, that the art was developed in certain directions and not in others wherein it might be expected. In hammered copper-work and in drilling, it was most remarkable, in the latter extending even to the perforation of quartz crystals, but of pottery there is little, and that not very choice—a striking contrast to the abundant and elaborately ornamental potter’s art of the tribes in the Southwest.

Tonti, the historian of La Salle’s expedition, in the eighteenth century, states that La Salle actually saw mound-dwellers among southern tribes of Indians, living very much as the Ohio mound-builders must have done, and quite untouched as yet by any contact with the whites. Tonti describes the dwellings, made of sun-dried mud and with dome-shaped roofs of cane; two of them were larger and better constructed than the rest, one the chief’s house and the other a temple, both about forty feet square. The latter held the bones of deceased chieftains, and was surmounted by three rude, wooden eagles. In the center was apparently “a kind of altar,” where was maintained a perpetual fire of logs, watched by two aged men. A recess, to which strangers were not admitted, contained the treasures of the tribe, especially pearls from the Gulf, as he was told. The chief returned the visit of La Salle, coming in great state, with attendants, one of whom bore a disk of copper, supposed to represent the sun, the chief’s great ancestor.[559] The wooden eagles recall the large copper bird taken from mound No. 25 at Hopewell; and the copper disk carried before the chief suggests a similar use for some of the large objects of the same metal. The whole account is extremely interesting in its resemblance to the Ohio remains.

The most complete study of these ancient structures is that of the Harness mound, not far distant from the Hopewell, conducted under the direction of the Ohio State Archæological and Historical Society, in 1905, by their curator and librarian, Prof. William C. Mills.[560]

The Harness group contains within and about it fourteen mounds; the works as a whole were described by Squier and Davis, on page 56 of their great report (“Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley,” 1848), and have been frequently mentioned and pictured for their striking form,—a large and perfect circle, opening at one side into a smaller circle and also into an exact square. They are located, like the Hopewell, in Ross County, and stand on a terrace of the Scioto River, nearly a mile from its eastern bank, and about eight miles south of Chillicothe.

The square inclosure measures 1080 feet on each side, and the diameters of the two circles are about 1600 feet for the larger and 650 feet for the smaller. In general character, this group closely resembles the Hopewell: there is the same low wall or embankment, some four feet high, though without any ditch as at Hopewell, and the same problem as to its object. A number of small mounds are placed here and there, and one large and important one recalls the Effigy, though it is somewhat less in size and much more regular in form. In 1846, when Squier and Davis examined it, unfortunately most of the ground was covered with woods; but these are gone, and the works have since been much reduced by tillage and partly obliterated by railroad and other constructions.

The one large mound is named for the recent owner of the property, Mr. Edwin Harness; the present owner, his son, Mr. John M. Harness, aided and facilitated the explorations in every way. This fact, as also in the case of Mr. Hopewell, stands in pleasing and honorable contrast to the narrow policy of some land-owners, who refuse permission for any such work, even when the structures are upon unused and valueless ground.

The large mound is an almost perfect oval in form, 160 feet long and some 80 feet across at its widest point, which is about one third of the way from the northern end; in height it is nearly 20 feet, or was before its recent removal. It was partly explored by Squier and Davis in 1846, and quite extensively by Professor Putnam in 1885, and, unlike the Effigy mound, had been repeatedly opened and examined in a small way by both official and unofficial explorers. In 1896, Mr. W. K. Moorehead took up the work where Professor Putnam had stopped, and carried it considerably further, under the auspices of the Ohio Archæological and Historical Society; and the same body, in 1905, commissioned Mr. Mills to resume and complete the examination, removing the entire structure down to its base.

The Harness mound, unlike the Effigy, was for burial purposes only. There must have been nearly two hundred. Squier and Davis found one of these, and possibly another which they mistook for an “altar”; and they state their belief that the mound probably contained other burials which their two pits had not revealed. Professor Putnam encountered 12 burials, Mr. Moorehead 27, and the final exploration 133, making a total of 174. Besides these, an unknown number have been disturbed and removed by occasional explorers. Of the 174 recorded, only ten had been buried without being burned; the rest were all cremated, some where they were laid, but most of them elsewhere, and the ashes brought and placed in the grave. This was in all cases carefully prepared, within a small inclosure of logs, the decayed and charred remains of which are clearly traceable. The entire mound itself had been outlined with posts set in the ground. the holes and impressions remaining as evidence of the fact.

Mr. Mills outlines the history of this mound, in a way that recalls Mr. Moorehead’s views as to the gradual growth of the Effigy. It began as a place for the holding of funeral rites and the deposit of the dead, marked out by lines of posts, which show that it was from time to time enlarged. Finally, when the place was substantially filled, earth and gravel were deposited over the whole, and slabs of stone (particularly noted by Squier and Davis) were laid around it, upon the lower part of the slope.

Much description is given of the separate graves or burial chambers, which are of several types, and of the various details of the cremated and uncremated interments. The mound is rich in relics, although none of the profuse sacrificial accumulations of the “altars” were encountered, this being a mound of burial only. The relics are of the same kind, in general, as those found in the Hopewell group, and to specify them in detail would be only repetition. From the 133 graves opened in Mr. Mills’s final investigation, no less than 1200 specimens were obtained for the museum of the Archæological Society at Columbus. Among these were artefacts of Lake Superior copper (and some pieces of native silver), large shells from the Gulf, galena, obsidian, and much mica, both in “blocks” and cut into ornaments, all showing the same range of aboriginal commerce as already described at Hopewell. In reference to pearls, the following are the principal observations:

Beads made from Unio pearls were very abundant everywhere in the Harness mound, as also beads of shell. They are found in such position as to show that they were strung and worn around the neck or wrists. One burial (No. 100) had some 2100 pearl beads, all rather small, and some of them perfectly round. Several hundred were obtained, however, that ranged from one quarter to one half an inch in diameter. A number of these are shown of natural size. The larger pearls, instead of being bored through for beads, are frequently somewhat flattened by grinding, and then pierced with two holes so as to attach them to a fabric. Very large ones were sometimes set in copper,—a style of work never observed before. Mr. Mills says of this: “Large and select pearls were flattened upon one side by grinding, and then placed upon a circular disk of copper a little larger than the pearl. The edges were then turned (up) around the pearl, holding it in place. Not only were pearls set in this way, but various pieces of shell cut in a circular form.” Fine examples of this unique style of jewelry, of natural size, and another copper setting of like character, from which the pearl has been lost, are shown in plates facing pages 499 and 510.

More curious still is the discovery of imitation pearls, made of clay, and apparently modeled from real ones as they reproduce all the irregularities of form of the true pearls. They could easily have been made more nearly spherical, as the beads cut from shell are so regular as to look as though made by machinery. These somewhat irregular clay imitations, found with the genuine pearls, were first coated with a pulverent mica and then burned so as to preserve a pearly appearance.

Other forms of art work were abundantly represented in the Harness mound, such as carvings and decorations in stone and bone; a variety of textile fabrics, of which remnants are preserved when they were in contact with plates of copper, the salts of the metal having penetrated the fabric and prevented its entire decay; very skilful work in copper, and to some extent in native silver and meteoric iron; and numerous fragments of pottery, more or less ornamental with simple impressed patterns. The “culture,” as a whole, appears to have been equal, and very similar, to that of the Hopewell community, and these are regarded as having been the most advanced among the Ohio mound-builders; while the term “Fort Ancient culture” is applied to a somewhat lower grade in the matter of arts, which has its chief illustration among the builders and occupants of that celebrated work. By such researches, thus minutely and systematically conducted, there is now beginning to be possible something like a classification of these ancient unknown tribes, which will doubtless be developed more fully, as investigation shall be extended and its results combined and compared.

As to pearls in the mounds of Illinois, we are informed by the veteran archæologist, Dr. J. F. Snyder, that in 1889 he found the skeletons of three adult Indians at the base of a small mound on the bluffs of the Sangomon River in Cass County. These skeletons were in a squatting posture; artefacts—such as greenstone celts, a bicave stone and a heavy pipe—had only been deposited with one of them. Around each wrist and ankle of this skeleton were perforated beads made from _Marginella_ shells, and resting on the sternum was a solitary pearl which had evidently formed the center of a necklace of the same small marine shells. Although much decayed, it still retained something of its original luster. It was spherical, measured approximately seven eighths of an inch in diameter, and was perforated through the middle. Dr. Snyder also states that at the base of one of the large mounds he opened in 1895, in Brown County, on the west side of the Illinois River, he discovered a number of the large canine teeth of the bear, perforated at the roots, so as to be used for necklaces. On the convex side of each tooth were from two to four pits about one third of an inch in diameter, and the same in depth, in which gems had been inserted. Two small pearls were still in place. Near by were the remains of another necklace composed of alternate pearls and bone beads; the latter were oblong and perforated lengthwise. Eight of the pearls were recovered, ranging in diameter from one half to one third of an inch, and pierced through the center, but all were very badly injured by the action of fire.

Mr. David I. Bushnell, who has excavated the McEvers mound in Montezuma, Pike County, Illinois, for the Missouri Historical Society, found in this mound a cyst containing a skeleton six feet in height and also a skull reposing on a bundle of bones near which lay forty-five pearls, one of them weighing fifty-two grains and still showing a beautiful luster. Almost all the objects discovered in the mound will be presented to the Missouri Historical Society. The large pearl would be worth from $12,000 to $15,000 if it were in perfect condition.

We learn from Mr. Richard Herrmann, founder of the Herrmann Museum of Natural History, Dubuque, Iowa, that on the top of the high cliff from Eagle’s Point to its end at McKnight’s Spring, there were formerly a great many mounds which were long ago examined by government experts. Many ancient ornaments were found in these mounds, among them a string of pearls, greatly damaged from having been buried for a long period.[561] Mr. Herrmann believes that these pearls were taken from the Mississippi River by the mound-builders.

Enough has been said, in this general sketch, to give some idea of the extent to which pearls, largely those from the fresh-water Unios, were gathered and used by the native tribes of North America, from the ancient mound-builders of the Ohio Valley to the Indians encountered by the explorers and colonists of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

The love of pearls shown by the Indians was as noteworthy as was their devotion to their dead and the superstitious mystery which enshrouds their funeral rites; for, when the human sacrifice was consummated, the act was performed in as earnest a spirit of devotion as was shown by Abraham in his readiness to sacrifice Isaac, and the Indians evidenced an almost pathetic sentiment either of reverence, duty, or supernatural dread.

Dr. J. Walter Fewkes writes that in none of his excavations has he ever noted pearls. Haliotis shells, conch shells, and fragments of the same have been found in the great ruins at Casa Grande, Arizona.

Dr. Charles Hercules Read, director of the Department of Archæology of the British Museum, states that the Mexican mosaic masks in the Christy collection, which are pre-Columbian in origin, and probably date hundreds of years in advance of the conquest, prove of special interest from the fact that five of them contain an inlay of mother-of-pearl shell. The first of these is a plain mask in which the eyes are of mother-of-pearl; the second is a dagger having the details of feather-work in mother-of-pearl; the third, a circular shield center having the eyes, teeth, fingers, and toes of the figures in mother-of-pearl; the fourth, a helmet with small pieces of pearl-shell representing collars around the necks of rattlesnakes; and the fifth is a jaguar in the side of which are similar inlays. These masks are described by Dr. Read in “Archæologia,” Society of Antiquaries, London, Vol. LIV, p. 383; in this volume the objects are shown in color. Dr. Read communicates that the pearl jaguar seems to be of more recent execution, but he believes the first four to be original. He is not entirely sure that these objects contain the true mother-of-pearl, the substance having changed so much as to make a decision doubtful even if it were extracted. He states, however, that it is a pearly, nacreous shell, resembling that of the ordinary pearl-oyster. In these masks are also other shells, among them a red shell, probably a spondylus, almost as red as coral. The mother-of-pearl is of special interest as it is quite possible that the shell itself was known, and it may be that pearls also formed part of a commerce that existed between the coast and the interior.

[Illustration:

Group of charred, cut fresh-water pearls; more than 100,000 found in mounds ]

[Illustration:

Finger-shaped piece of lignite inlaid with fresh-water pearl ]

[Illustration:

Copper bird, 15⅞ inches long with eye of fresh-water pearl ]

FRESH-WATER PEARLS FROM HOPEWELL GROUP OF MOUNDS, ROSS COUNTY, OHIO

We are informed by Mr. E. P. Dieseldorf, of Coban, Republic of Guatemala, that he has never observed pearls in the pre-Columbian graves in Guatemala; he had, however, frequently found marine shells, whole, and elaborated in connection with jadeite beads.

In a personal communication, Mr. Thomas Gann, of Yucatan, states that, in excavating a mound at San Antonio, near the mouth of the Rio Hondo, in Yucatan, he uncovered a small stone cyst or chamber, containing two perforated, pear-like ornaments of considerable size, together with portions of a human skeleton, painted pottery, etc. He also states that ornaments such as beads, gorgets, and ear-pendants, made from the pearly shell of both the oyster and the conch, are of common occurrence in many sepulchral mounds in British Honduras and in Yucatan, and he notes the fact that pink conch pearls are found in considerable numbers at the present day along the coast of British Honduras. There is no especial fishing for pearls, and they are found only incidentally in conchs which have been gathered for food. These pearls are sold by fishermen in Balize at prices varying from two or three dollars to twenty or thirty apiece. In size they range from that of a large pin’s head to that of a small pea.

Mrs. Marie Robinson Wright informs us that she has never found pearls in the Bolivian graves, although they are quite plentiful in Bolivia to-day, and hundreds of them are offered in the markets. The pretty girls wear them as earrings and in their _topos_.

There is no doubt that pearls existed long before the advent of man, both in the fresh-water and in the marine form. This is more clearly evidenced by Sir Charles Lyell, who calls attention to the fact that the fresh-water mussel (_Unio littoralis Gray_), formerly found in abundance at Grays Thurrock, Essex, no longer exists in England, but occurs in France, showing that not only had this mollusk been unseen by any Englishman, but that the form had become extinct in an entire country. Thus, both the pearl shell of the ocean and the pearl-mussel of the river, for many centuries produced pearls, which passed away with the shell itself.

A great number of fossil Unios were collected by Barnum Brown from the Laramie clays, 130 miles northwest of Miles City, Montana. The shells were found in a bed situated about 180 feet above the Fort Pierre shales and, therefore, well above the recognized cretaceous strata. These shells were in fairly good condition and retained the nacreous coloring to a considerable extent. As some of them resemble the modern species, it seems that the same designations might be applied to them.

Prof. R. P. Whitfield, one of our greatest palæontologists, who has carefully examined these fossil shells, suggests that they are probably the progenitors of the species of Unios and fresh-water mussels that now inhabit the Mississippi and Wisconsin rivers and their tributaries, and he proposes the following names for some of them, indicating at the same time the living species with which he compares them: _Unio biæsopoides_, _Unio æsopoides_ and _Unio æsopiformis_, all resembling _U. æsopus_ Green; _Unio letsoni_ = _U. cornutus_ Barnes; _Unio cylindricoides_ = _U. cylindricus_ Say; _Unio gibbosoides_ = _U. gibbosus_ Barnes; _Unio pyramidatoides_ = _U. pyramidatus_ Lea; _Unio retusoides_ = _U. retusus_ Lam.; _Unio verucosiformis_ = _U. verrucosus_ Barnes.

Although it is almost certain that these ancient Unios were pearl-bearing, Professor Whitfield informs us that, in a period of fifty years of palæontological research, he has never found a fossil pearl.

We are informed by Sophus Müller, Director of the Royal Danish Museum of Antiquities at Copenhagen, that no Danish ornaments containing pearls have been found dating from an earlier period than 1000 B.C.; he also states that no fresh-water pearls have ever been discovered in the Danish graves.

Dr. H. Ulmann, director of the great Swiss Landesmuseum at Zurich, and Dr. Otto Leiner, director of the Rosengarten Museum at Constance, personally communicated to us that no pearls exist in either of the collections of these great museums, nor to their knowledge have any been discovered in the lake-dwellings or the prehistoric graves of either Switzerland or Baden. This may either be due to conditions favorable to the dissolution of the pearl by the action of the ooze on the lake bottom, or else to the entire absence of knowledge of them on the part of a people who were familiar with many materials, since the museum collections even show jade implements of a number of types.

Dr. Leiner, whose father was curator of the Rosengarten Museum before him, informs us that at Bodman on Lake Constance there were found a large number of bored cylinders, from one fourth of an inch to one inch in length, made out of limestone. They were used for necklaces, somewhat in the style of our Indian wampum, and were either worn alone or in connection with bored cylinders made of the tuff-rock and also of encrinite stems.

Dr. Leiner also asserts that he has never seen _Unio margaritifera_ in Lake Constance; nor was there any evidence of shells, broken or otherwise, observed by him in the excavations in the lake-dwellings.

The curator of the Rhodesia Museum, Bulawayo, South Africa, states that in Rhodesia, in the vicinity of Bulawayo, beads made out of the shell of the common Unio or fresh-water mussel (_Unio verreauxi_) have been observed in the graves, although pearls themselves have never been found with them in any burials.

ADDENDA

One of the authors used every endeavor in 1893 and 1894 to have a bill passed by Congress for the regulation of pearl-fishing in the United States. These efforts were frustrated by the influence of the local pearl fishers. An attempt has now been made to preserve the industry in Illinois, where the legislature has this spring passed a bill for its regulation.

The first section of the bill provides:

It shall be unlawful for any person or persons to take or catch, by any means whatever, in any of the navigable waters within the jurisdiction of this State, any mussel, fresh-water clam or shell-fish from the first day of October to the first day of April (both dates inclusive) of each succeeding year.

The bill imposes upon any one who violates these provisions a fine of not less than $25, nor more than $100, or imprisonment in the county jail for a term not exceeding one year, or else both fine and imprisonment at the discretion of the court.

Another section provides that any one not a resident of Illinois, who takes clams, shell-fish, or mussels, without procuring a license, shall be subject to a fine of not less than $50, nor more than $100, or to imprisonment for one year, or to both penalties. The licenses may be procured on application and payment of $50 for each vessel to be employed, and they expire on the first day of October following their issuance. The amount received for these licenses is to be turned over to the State Treasurer at the end of each month and placed to the credit of the State Fish Protective Fund. No boat having more than two bars, each not exceeding sixteen feet in length, shall be used for this fishery, and the space separating the hooks on these bars is not to be less than eight inches.

Miss Carl, the artist who painted the portraits of the Empress and that of the Dowager Empress of China, states that she wears a diamond ring. When she shows this she apologizes for wearing it, stating that it had been given to her by the Viceroy, Li Hung Chang, saying that she, herself, sees no beauty in the sparkle of the diamond; for her there is more beauty in the soft, quiet tones of the pearl than in the brilliancy of the diamond.

During the Boxer War in China, the looting was carried on to so great an extent, that a French hotel-keeper is said to have obtained a basket of pearls, which he bought for a trifle, and which are said to have netted him very nearly $1,000,000.

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ELGIN, _Earl of_

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Underbrush. _Boston_, 1881. 8vo.

FILIPPI (FILIPPO DE)

Sull’ origine delle perle. Il Cimento revista di Scienza, Lettere, ed Arti, VOL. I, pp. 429–439. _Torino_, 1852. Translated into German by Dr. Küchenmeister in Müllers’ Archiv für Anatomie, Physiologie, und wissenschaftliche Medicin, 1856, pp. 251–269. _Berlin_, 1856.

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Also in Annales des Sciences Naturelles, VOL. II (Zool.), pp. 254–284. _Paris_, 1854. Nouvelles observations sur le développement des Trématodes.

Annales des Sciences Naturelles, III (Zool.), pp. 111–113. _Paris_, 1855.

Encore un mot sur la formation des perles. Müllers’ Archiv für Anatomie, Physiologie, und wissenschaftliche Medicin, 1856, pp. 490–493. _Berlin_, 1856.

Troisième mémoire pour servir à l’histoire génétique des Trématodes. Memorie della Reale Accademia delle Scienze di Torino. VOL. XVIII, pp. 201–232. _Torino_, 1859.

FISCHER (GOTTHELF)

Essai sur la Pellegrina, ou la Perle incomparable des Frères Zozima. _Moscou_. 1818. 8vo.

FISCHER (P.)

Production artificielle des perles. Journal de Conchyliologie, VOL. XIII, pp. 64–65. _Paris_, 1865.

FRANK LESLIE’S MAGAZINE

Pearl-mussel Fishery of New Jersey. “Frank Leslie’s Magazine,” VOL. III, pp. 384–386. _New York_, May 23, 1857.

FRÉDÉ (PIERRE)

La Pêche aux Perles. _Paris_, 1887. 8vo.

La Pêche aux Perles en Perse et à Ceylon. _Paris_, 1890. 8vo.

FREDERICK (CÆSAR)

The Fishing for Pearls [in Ceylon, 1563–81]. Translated out of Italian by Thomas Hickoke. Hakluyt’s Voyages, VOL. V. _Glasgow_, 1904. 8vo.

FRIEDLAENDER (S.)

Perlen der Juwelierausstellung. Internationale Fischerei-Austellung zu Berlin, 1880, pp. 75–83. _Berlin_, 1881. 8vo.

FRISWELL (J. H.)

Pearls and Oysters. “Once a Week,” VOL. III, pp. 78–81. _London_, July 14, 1860.

FRYER (JOHN)

A new Account of East-India and Persia. _London_, 1698. Fol.

GANONG (W. F.)

Bibliography of the Fresh-water Pearl Fishery in New Brunswick. Bulletin of the Natural History Society of New Brunswick, NO. XVII, pp. 134–136., _St. John, N. B._, 1899.

GARNER (ROBERT)

On the Pearls of the Conway River, North Wales. British Association for the Advancement of Science, Report for 1856,