Paula Pope, age 10, of Gastonia, N. U

 Where do we find precious pearls?

A precious pearl is made from start to finish inside an oyster. Any oyster can create a pearl and there are oyster beds off countless warm and cool shores around the world. Only the pearl oysters however, can make a gleaming, iridescent pearl of gem quality and this fellow is very choosy about where he lives. His beds are found only in a few warm, shallow seas. These gems are called Oriental pearls, though not all of them are produced in the Orient.

There is a vast ring of pearl oyster beds in the Persian Gulf. T o give the pearls time to form, only one seventh of this area is harvested each year. Other precious pearls are taken from the Red Sea, from waters around Burma, Ceylon and far across the Pacific around the Philippines and other south sea islands. Pearl oysters also are busy off the shores of northern Australia and Lower California,