Ocean Watch

While passing through O'Hare Airport recently, a beautiful book called "Pearls: A Natural History" caught my eye. Published by Chicago's Field Museum, this book touched on just about everything anyone might want to know about pearls.

As I paged through this colorful volume, the shopkeeper said, "A jeweler bought a copy of that today. He said it's an excellent reference book."

"I'm a marine biologist," I said, "and I think it's an excellent reference book, too."

"Good," the shopkeeper said as he accepted my credit card. "Now I can tell customers that this book is recommended by jewelers and marine biologists."

One of the reasons I liked the book is that besides sections on biology and aquaculture, it had good stories about pearls and people. Pearls, the products of ailing oysters, have been in demand throughout the world for thousands of years.

The oldest pearls in human history were found by archeologists in Turkey and Middle Eastern countries. Those pearls and mother-of-pearl items date to the early Bronze Age, from about 6,000 to 3,000 B.C.

The earliest written word about pearls comes from the Epic of Gilgamesh, written around 3,000 B.C. In the story, Gilgamesh ties stones to his feet, enabling him to dive to the sea floor and collect a flower growing there. Since pearl divers later used stone weights, some researchers believe that Gilgamesh's "flower" was a pearl.

Mentions of pearls in ancient Indian literature are abundant. My favorite is this one: "Cloud pearls, being naturally effulgent like the sun, illuminate the sky in all directions and dispel the darkness of cloudy days."

Now there's a good cure for rainy-day blues: Wear pearls.

Records show that in 300 B.C., Indian pearls were worth three times their weight in gold. Such gems made their way to the Greek and Roman empires, and soon European royalty were showing off their pearls in crowns, on bodices and even sewn onto shoes.

One famous royal pearl is called La Peregrina, meaning "the incomparable." A slave found this huge, perfect, pear-shaped pearl in the Gulf of Panama in the 16th century and won his freedom for it. For centuries this fantastic pearl traveled back and forth between Spain and England's royal treasuries depending upon who married whom.

In 1969, La Peregrina came to America when actor Richard Burton bought it as a Valentine's Day gift for his wife, Elizabeth Taylor, who owns it to this day. Several years ago, Taylor lost the pearl in a Las Vegas hotel room. A frantic search found it in the mouth of her dog.

The largest pearl ever found came from a Philippine giant clam. Called the Pearl of Allah, it measures 9 inches across, weighs nearly 14 pounds and resembles a small brain.

Early Greeks believed that lightning strikes to the sea created pearls. Romans thought pearls were tears of the gods. And a tale from ancient Asia, which lasted through the 17th century, concluded that pearls were solidified dewdrops captured by enterprising oysters.

Today we know that pearl formation is the not-so-romantic response of a bivalve to an irritant. In "The World of the Sea," published in London in 1869, H. Martyn Hart said it all: "It is a singular reflection that the gem so admired and coveted by man should be the product of disease in a helpless mollusk."