The pearl ; its story, its charm, and its value . aroques cannot prop-erly be called imperfections; nevertheless abaroque is more valuable as it is free fromindentations and approaches the round inappearance, or has sides which will give it around face when mounted. The curious formsinto which nature moulds many of them arevery attractive, and as they lend themselvesto the imaginative skill of the jeweller, arevaluable. The faults common to them arerough places uncovered by nacre and coloredstreaks or spots, usually yellow tending tobrown. These discolorations are confined gen-erally to the po
The pearl ; its story, its charm, and its value . aroques cannot prop-erly be called imperfections; nevertheless abaroque is more valuable as it is free fromindentations and approaches the round inappearance, or has sides which will give it around face when mounted. The curious formsinto which nature moulds many of them arevery attractive, and as they lend themselvesto the imaginative skill of the jeweller, arevaluable. The faults common to them arerough places uncovered by nacre and coloredstreaks or spots, usually yellow tending tobrown. These discolorations are confined gen-erally to the point where the baroque wasattached to the shell, but not infrequently theyextend far enough to leave no front whichwould be quite clean to the eye, when mounted. Oriental baroques as a rule are more lustrous, IMPERFECTIONS more even in shape and seldom of them are sufficiently regular to stringfor necklaces, and some can be used in jewelryso that on the face they appear like round,drop, or pear-shaped pearls. 123 GENESIS OF PEARLS. 1 iamu I i PEARL-SHELL GENESIS OF PEARLS Pearls are found in certain marine and fresh-water mollusks. The former are usually termedoysters, though zoologists regard it in someinstances as a misnomer. The sea-fish is theavicula margaritifera, a bivalve of which thereare many varieties, all of similar shape andnature but differing widely in the size, weight,coloring, and quality of the shell. Of them, the genus meleagrina is thelargest, has the heaviest shell, and furnishes thegreatest quantity of the beautiful substanceknown as mother-of-pearl. The other extremeis the small, frail-shelled variety taken off thecoast of Venezuela, called sometimes aviculasquamulosa. Similar to this is the margari-tifera vulgaris, or avicula fucata, of pearl oyster of the Persian Gulf thoughsimilar is somewhat larger. Exact and uniform classification of the pearl-bearing mollusks of the sea does not exist,nor is it necessary in this connection,
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