ARTIFICIAL PEARLS.--The art of making artificial pearls has been brought to such perfection in Paris, that even jewellers and pawnbrokers have occasionally had a difficulty in deciding between the artificial and the real. The origin of this successful imitation is given as follows: A French bead-maker named Jaquin, observing that when the small fish called _ablette_, or bleak (_Cyprinus alburnus_), was washed, the water was filled with fine silver-colored particles, collected some of these for the purposes of his trade. He found that the soft shining powder thus obtained had, to a remarkable degree, the lustre of pearls; hence, he called it essence of pearl, or _essence d'orient_. He first made small beads of gypsum and covered them with this substance; they were greatly admired and eagerly sought after; but it was found that this pearly coat, when exposed to heat, separated itself from the bead, and attached itself to the skin of the wearer in a manner that was anything but pleasant. The ladies themselves, it is said, suggested to Jaquin the making of hollow glass beads, and covering the inside with essence of pearl. This he did, and established a manufacture, of which some idea may be gained by the following account. Slender tubes of glass are first prepared, called _girasols_, a term applied to opal, and sometimes to the stone called cat's-eye, and given to these tubes because the glass is of a peculiar bluish tint. From these the artist blows minute globules, to the extent of from two to six thousand per day, not caring to make them all perfectly regular or free from blemish, because the natural pearls are not so. The pearl essence is then mixed with a solution of isinglass, and is blown while hot into each bead by means of a fine glass pipe. The solution is spread equally over the whole internal surface, by shaking the pearls in a vessel placed over the table where the workman sits, and to which he gives motion by his foot. When the varnish is equally diffused and dry, the beads are filled with white wax; this gives them the necessary weight and solidity, and renders them less fragile. They are then bored with a needle, and threaded on strings for sale. The holes in the finer sort are lined with thin paper, that the thread may not adhere to the wax.