Nature provides for the denizens of the deep that make these beautiful gems. The ocean pearl oyster or bivalve (_avicula margaritifera_) and fresh water mussel (_unio margaritifera_) have wonderful homes--their shells. Coarse, rough, rugged, often distorted on the outside, within they are lined with smooth, softly-glowing, iridescent “mother of pearl.” The membrane, attaching the bivalve to its shell, extracts lime from the water, building the shell from the inside outward in successive layers, preserving the finest nacreous secretions for the smooth inside lining, thus protecting its delicate body. In this comfortable home the mollusk is contented, but an enemy sometimes attacks it by boring through its hard shell. Leucodore, clione and other borers, parasitic or domiciliary worms work into the shell, and instinctively the protecting nacreous fluid envelops the intruder. This is the birth of the pearl. The intruder, now covered entirely with the pearl-nacre, is constantly rolled and lapped about, and successive layers of nacre are applied until in a few years a pearl of great size and value is formed and awaits the hardy, daring pearl fisher. Pearls were the first gems discovered and used as ornaments in prehistoric ages. Found in their natural state in utmost perfection, needing no cutting nor polishing, these glowing beads of the sea were the first baubles of savages, tribes and nations. Today the pearl is the favored gem of those who are surfeited with valuable jewels. It is essentially a gem for the wealthy. The connoisseur, accustomed to the possession of jewels, finds in its soft luster a grandeur above that of all the sparkling stones. Fancy pearls include all those of decided color, having a rare and beautiful tint. “White pearls” include pure white and white slightly tinted with pink, blue, green or yellow. Of these colored white pearls, the delicate, lightly-tinted, pink pearl of fine color and luster known as “rose” is most beautiful. Every white pearl is classified according to its respective tint and thus its price is determined, the values ranging in the order named above, from highest for pure white, to lowest for yellowish-white. What is Cork? Cork is the outer bark of a species of oak which grows in Spain, Portugal and other southern parts of Europe and in the north of Africa. The tree is distinguished by the great thickness and sponginess of its bark, and by the leaves being evergreen, oblong, somewhat oval, downy underneath, and waved. The outer bark falls off of itself if let alone, but for commercial purposes it is stripped off when judged sufficiently matured, this being when the tree has reached the age of from fifteen to thirty years. In the course of eight or nine years, or even less, the same tree will yield another supply of cork of better quality, and the removal of this outer bark is said to be beneficial, the trees thus stripped reaching the age of 150 years or more.