PEARLS DOWN THE SINK

Dominion, Volume 16, Issue 171, 7 April 1923, Page 12

PEARLS DOWN THE SINK

STRANGE STORM STORY FROM FALMOUTH. Somewhere in England cooks have been throwing away the grit and gravel which have dropped from mussels in the boiling, unaware that they were rejecting pear’s of price. Recently five tons of the shell fish were sent to market from Helford, near Falmouth; They were the flotsam of the wild weather round the coast. A local fisherman noticed some singularly large specimens of mussel on one of the beaches, and came to the conclusion that they must have been broken from an unknown bed near by. Following up the clue, the fishermen found a large accumulation at the mouth of the river Fal. It had evidently been covered by weed and sand until the gales disturbed the mass. A large catch resulted, and the fish were remarkably fine ones. So remark- . a;i.:e ’refe 'they that the fishermen opened some to see whether they were in good condition- In many of them they found pearls, mostly of small size, but some as big as a- small pea. The men did not appear to be greatly impressed by the discovery. They were curious, but, being fishermen and not pearl experts, they did not talk about what they had found for fear that the market value of the mussels might be depreciated. They sent off the whole catch to market, and they had been sold and eaten before the fact came to light. There must have been some rather precious refuse thrown away with the boiling water in some of the London hotels. The revelation is the more remarkable since pearls are very jeldom found in mussels.