Pearls: Dew from Heaven

"Lovely soft pearls, the fanciful images of sad tears," have been used in rings from the time of the Latins. Cleopatra's drinking off the residuum of a pearl, worth three hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars, aside from luxurious extravagance, seems to be somewhat nasty; but we are inclined to believe that this fond queen had faith in its supposed medicinal and talismanic properties:

"--Now I feed myself

With most delicious passion."

Pliny, the Roman naturalist, gravely tells us that the oyster which produces pearls, does so from feeding on heavenly dew. Drummond thus translates him:

"With open shells in seas, on heavenly dew,

A shining oyster lusciously doth feed;

And then the birth of that ethereal seed

Shows, when conceived, if skies look dark or blue."

Early English writers entertained the same notion; and Boethius, speaking of the pearl-mussel of the Scotch rivers, remarks, that "These mussels, early in the morning, when the sky is clear and temperate, open their mouths a little above the water and most greedily swallow the dew of heaven; and after the measure and quantity of the dew which they swallow, they conceive and breed the pearl. These mussels," he continues, "are so exceedingly quick of touch and hearing, that, however faint the noise that may be made on the bank beside them, or however small the stone that may be thrown into the water, they sink at once to the bottom, knowing well in what estimation the fruit of their womb is to all people." In the East, the belief is equally common that these precious gems are

"--rain from the sky,

Which turns into pearls as it falls in the sea."

The ancient idea that pearls are generated of the dews of heaven, is pretty conclusively met by Cardanus, who says it is fabulous, seeing that the shell fishes, in which they are conceived, have their residence in the very bottom of the depth of the sea.