Show IS I Fine Pearls Found Once upon a time all the smaller rivers of the middle Tennessee basin I were happy hunting grounds for pearl loving Creeks Choctaws and Cherokees Chero-kees Even earlier the Mound Builders laid the pearlbearing mussels under tribute They must have found the mussels very plenty since in more I than one instance clay vessels full of goodsized gems have been discovered I These of course crumbled soon after i exposure to light and air The Mound Builders like the red men who came I later perhaps had a habit of putting the mussels in the fire to roast regardless I regard-less of the damage to the gems inside I I Within the last few years pearl hunting has been in a measure revived All the small clean swiftrunning pebblebottomed streams of the country coun-try abound in mussels whose inner I shells show the irfldescence of mdther of pearl They live In or on the gravel beds and are carried about by floods and freshets In size they run from the bigness of a thumb nail to the I spread of the two hands There is a sqrt of proportion between their growth and the depth and volume of the water they live in The big fellows which furnish pearls grow only in big mill streams and small rivers Duck river Harpeth Stone river Red river have all been the scene of notable finds One Duck river pearl fetched 1200 Another found very lately In Red river by EC lad in bathing netted him the handsome I hand-some sum of 200and was resold by the purchaser for 500 Another young pearl hunter found an eleven grain jewel in the second mussel opened but though he opened 10000 more did not get so much as a seed pearl i Usually half a dozen men and boys hunt together camping on the rive bank and systematically examining the bars and riffles The hunting is done in summer and at low water After a freshet the same bars may be hopefully worked over as npt only do the gravel beds shift but mrissels very deep down may be brought near the top The hunters carry short stout forks and light hammers The mussels mus-sels which rest in the gravel half open shut their shells strongly at a touch They arc pried out of the bed and the shells broken upon the nearest stone Very often the hunters find nothing but they have had a good time at work that was like play and sweetened throughout with the expectation of a big find The pearl hunter is not the mussels only enemy nor indeed his chief one Minks muskrats and raccoons live largely upon the shell fish Almost any pleasant night they can be heard diving and splashing about the mussel beds Altogether it is likely that before many years inland pearl fishing will be II only a tradition D |