Page:Twenty Thousand Verne Frith 1876.pdf/281

 pitying glance, as if they had lost a limb. Ought I to warn them? Yes, doubtless, but I did not quite know how to set about it.

“Monsieur,” said Conseil, “will Monsieur tell us how they set about this oyster fishing.”

“The fishing itself, or the incidents connected with it?”

“About the fishing,” said the Canadian. “Before getting to the ground, we ought to know something of it.”

“Well, then, if you will sit down, I will tell you all I have read upon the subject.”

Ned and Conseil took their seats, and suddenly the Canadian asked:

“What is a pearl?”

“My brave Ned,” I replied, “to a poet a pearl is a tear of the sea; to the Orientals it is a solidified dew-drop; to ladies it is a jewel of oblong shape, of a material like mother-of-pearl, which they wear on the finger, the neck, or ears; for the chemist it is a mixture of the phosphate and the carbonate of lime with a little gelatine; and, finally, for naturalists it is merely a morbid secretion of the organ which produces the mother-of-pearl in some bivalves.”

“Branch of mollusca—class acephali; order testacea,” said Conseil,

“Precisely, Professor Conseil. Now amongst these testacea, the sea-ear iris, the turbot, the tridanæ, and all those which secrete the mother-of-pearl—that is to say, that blue, bluish-violet, or white substance which lines the interior of their shells—are not unlikely to produce pearls.”

“And mussels also?” asked the Canadian.

“Yes, mussels in certain districts of the coast of Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Saxony, Bohemia, and France.”

“Ah! in future I will pay them a little attention,” replied Ned.