Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 1 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
- Page 317 of 779 - First - Home
The Government Permits Fishing There Only
During A Single Month; While At Cubagua The Bank Of Shells Was
Fished At All Seasons.
To form an idea of the destruction of the
species caused by the divers, we must remember that a boat
sometimes collects, in two or three weeks, more than thirty-five
thousand oysters.
The animal lives but nine or ten years; and it is
only in its fourth year that the pearls begin to show themselves.
In ten thousand shells there is often not a single pearl of value.
Tradition records that on the bank of Margareta the fishermen
opened the shells one by one: in the island of Ceylon the animals
are thrown into heaps to rot in the air; and to separate the pearls
which are not attached to the shell, the animal pulp is washed, as
miners wash the sand which contains grains of gold, tin, or
diamonds.
At present Spanish America furnishes no other pearls for trade than
those of the gulf of Panama, and the mouth of the Rio de la Hacha.
On the shoals which surround Cubagua, Coche, and the island of
Margareta, the fishery is as much neglected as on the coasts of
California.* (* I am astonished at never having heard, in the
course of my travels, of pearls found in the fresh-water shells of
South America, though several species of the Unio genus abound in
the rivers of Peru.) It is believed at Cumana, that the
pearl-oyster has greatly multiplied after two centuries of repose;
and in 1812, some new attempts were made at Margareta for the
fishing of pearls.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 317 of 779
Words from 86064 to 86335
of 211363
