CONCERNING PEARLS.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VIII, Issue 686, 15 July 1914, Page 7

CONCERNING PEARLS.

Conversing recently with a repre centative Parisian jeweller, I was told that it is well known that the brilliancy of pearls is increased by wearing Ihcm. It has also / been discovered that certain persons have the very contrary effect on pearls. Th'sir skiri seems to contain certain properties which have the eflect of dulling or deadening a pearl, and causing it to lose its brilliancy altogcthsr. Ladies, therefore, who give their pearls to others to wear must b.3 sure that those persons are perfectly healthy. People v.ho ha-c undergone • certain treatments or taken certain remedies are unfit to wear' pearls next their skin. If, therefore, soma persons have a tad effect'-on- pearls, others may .have a good eflect. But in general it is absurd to believe that pearls die' Ikcre' is no such thing as a sran. of li:'e in pearls. They arc, in fact, amir ortal; and if at any time their lustbrc is diminished it can be revived, by proper treatment or by; being simply worn for, a day or two. 'lhat pearls retain their and, as it were, their yiality, inlcCnltely is proved by the fact that most of the finest and largest Oriental pearls now on the market are obtained from East India an 1 . China, where they have been in the possession of native princes or Chinese manda"'-n3. These peails hare ten wo: n by five or six generations, and some are 200 or 300 years old. Their lustre is as bright to.day as ever. Tn fact, they are preferred to perfectly new pearls. Ihe pearls now obtained are becoming smaller and smaller, and the price of°small pearls, which some years ago would scarcely have been bought, Las gone up prodigiously until they cost almost as much as larger pearls. But whether small or largs, the Oriental pearl never loses its beautiful lustre if properly treated. . Wearing them next the skin certainly improves them, not, perhaps, through any magic process, but simply from the natural warmth of ths body added to the friction caused by the wear.—Paris Corresponient of the "Telegraph."