Page:Handbook of Western Australia.djvu/130

114 the coasts of the Colony, would suggest that the curing of fish, both for home and foreign consumption, would be a profitable industry. Small quantities are cured, but of no importance to the trade of the Colony. Tortoise shell is also exported, but this trade is at present inconsiderable, though in 1869 to the value of £483 was exported. The most important fishery is that for pearls and pearl shells, which commenced, as has been noted, in Sharks Bay, and was carried to the North-West Coast, where the supply of the pearl oyster seems inexhaustible; banks, supposed to have been worked out one year, having been found replenished the next; yet the time seems to be approaching when some regulation of the fishery, to prevent waste, will prove essential. In 1862, the pearl shells exported were valued at £250; in 1865, there were not any; in 1869, the export was to the amount of £6,490; in 1872, £25,890; in 1873, £28,388, with pearls to the estimated value of £6,000; in 1874, shells £62,162, and pearls £12,000; in 1875, shells £64,642, pearls £12,000; and in 1876, shells £75,292, and pearls £8,000. These amounts, though not probably showing the true market price, yet sufficiently prove the importance and progress of the trade. The shells at Sharks Bay are of small value compared with those of the North Coast. The trade was formerly carried on by means of Malay divers, but, the cost of these having debarred them from use, it has been found possible to continue it with native divers only.

was exported from Sharks Bay as early as the year 1840. Grey, when in the bay, found several vessels loading; the supply, however, was soon exhausted. In 1876 the export of guano from the Lacepede Islands off the North-West Coast commenced; £357, at 10s. a ton,