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Friday 15 March 2013

How are the pearls formed?

Pure pearls are very precious. You will be surprised to know that these are made by a small sea-creature, oyster. This can crawl on the ground also. The biggest tragedy with this little creature is that fish of the sea or the bigger members of its own family eat it away. When the oyster comes to the sea shore to save its life man eats it. In order to protect itself, it forms a hard shell around its own body. Pearls are made within this hard cover.
The discovery of pearls is an interesting story. Around four thousand years ago a Chinese was suffering from hunger. To quench his hunger he opened some oysters to find some eatables. Inside on oyster he found one round shining small ball. This shining thing was later on called pearl.
Whenever by chance a sand particle goes inside the shell of an oyster, it starts depositing layers after layers of the shell material on this particle. These layers are made up of calcium carbonate. After some-time the formation of the pearl inside the shell is completed. The pearl so formed is round, white and shining. This is called pure pearl. However, the pearls are not essentially white only. Their colours may be black or pink also. Man has now developed some techniques of making artificial pearls. Under these techniques sand particles are introduced inside the shell. After two or three years, when the shell is taken out of water, a pearl is found inside it. These pearls are called cultured pearls. Since pure natural pearls are very costly, generally we purchase pearls developed by these artificial techniques. On the 7th May, 1934 a pearl was found in Phillippines measuring 23 cm long with a diameter of 13 cm. This pearl weighed about 6 kg.

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