Читать книгу The Book of the Pearl. The history, art, science, and industry of the queen of gems онлайн

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However, Oliver Goldsmith settled the matter by declaring briefly: “Whether pearls be a disease or an accident in the animal is scarce worth enquiry.”^[48] Thus it seems that notwithstanding all that had been written and the extended attention given to the subject, theory prevailed to the almost complete exclusion of practical investigation, with little intelligent advance over Topsy’s “’spect they just growed.”

Owing, doubtless, to the scarcity of pearl-bearing mollusks in their vicinities, naturalists of Europe were somewhat slow in giving attention to the origin of pearls. This is further accounted for by the fact that the gems occur more frequently in old and diseased shells than in the choice specimens which have naturally attracted the notice of conchologists.

One of the first of the original observations made on this subject was that by Rondelet, who, in 1554, advanced the idea that pearls are diseased concretions occurring in the mollusca, similar to the morbid calculi in the mammalia.^[49]