The low prices paid by button manufacturers for mussel shells for the mother-of-pearl in them during the past year, has been one of the chief factors in reducing the quantity of pearls found and the consequent increase of price. It seldom pays the fisher to gather mussels for pearls only; it is the steady returns from the sale of the shells which ensures an adequate reward for his labors. Shells that once brought twenty dollars per ton fell during the early part of 1905 to a third of that amount and later went as low as two dollars and a half. They are now going up again. Many pearls are seriously injured by the practice of fishers who rely upon the sale of the shells for their returns, of throwing the mussels into vats of hot water to open them. The pearls released from the shells fall to the bottom and getting too near the hot iron are killed, which means that the luster is partially or wholly destroyed. Dredging is now quite common and is doing much to deplete the mussel-beds of the west. When one bed is completely divested of shells, the clammer moves on to another and repeats the process, so that the supply of fresh-water pearls is coming to depend on the constant discovery of new mussel-beds. Unless legislation regulates the industry the American supply will soon cease. The cheapest fresh-water pearls in the market to-day are the finest. The pearlers along the streams of the west and south will no longer part with the pearls they find to the speculators at the old time prices. In fact they generally want much more than they are worth and often get more than the speculator can afford to pay to ensure a profit when he comes to sell them in the business centres. But these fishers know little of the merits and value of the finer qualities. They do not yet realize the great difference in value which accrues as the pearl exceeds the average of luster, color, or perfection, consequently the speculator can often buy a very fine pearl for little more than he would have to pay for an ordinary pearl and though he knows that the piece is worth much more than he has paid, and tries to get as nearly what it is worth as he can, both his judgment and disposition to sell are affected by the low price he has paid and the chances are that he too in turn will sell it at much less than its relative value as compared with the ordinary market price of poor or medium quality goods. [Illustration: THE MARCHIONESS OF LONDONDERRY] This condition will gradually change. As in the past the fisher learned more and more of the market value of ordinary pearls, so also he will learn to know the price of exceptional pieces and to know them when he has them. Even now, speculators hold fine large pearls at high prices because of the ready sale for them in Europe.