Alice White
Do you know why pearls are formed?
Paradoxical as it may seem, such a rare and expensive stone as a pearl is just a way of protection. If a grain of sand or some small parasite enters the shell of an oyster, the body of this underwater creature begins to produce nacre, which envelops the foreign body. A pearl can “live” inside a shell for up to 200 years.
Previously, people believed that this round beautiful ball appears after a lightning strike in a shell. Pearls were used to treat the so-called “lunar diseases”: epilepsy, melancholy, and bleeding.
Let’s take a look at how captive pearls are grown.
Having chosen suitable sinks, they are carefully opened, being careful not to damage, and a wedge is inserted.
With the help of special tools, a ball-implant, previously grown in a freshwater mollusk, is placed inside the shell. He will be the base.
A piece of the mantle is cut from the donor shell.
Then the implant is covered with it to accelerate the “maturation” process.
The prepared ball is placed inside the shell. One implant per sink. True, the Chinese have already come up with technology according to which up to 40 tiny implants can be placed in one such shell.
Then all the treated shells are placed in a cage and immersed in seawater. After about a week, they are taken out and examined. As a rule, 10-20% of shells are discarded because they could not survive such implantation and opened up. On the other hand, the shells with the “engrafted” implant are transferred to another cage and left in seawater for a whole year.
After this period, the shells are opened.
The cost of one such pearl grown can go up to 300 thousand dollars.
