On 14 Mar, 15:57, "pearl" > wrote:
> "Dragonblaze" > wrote in ...
> > On 14 Mar, 13:07, "pearl" > wrote:
>
> > Just a quick aside he
>
> > Why would a vegan use the nic 'pearl', as a pearl is an animal
> > product????
>
> http://www.serapii-kisu.net/essence/...ism/pearls.php.
>
> Now don't prove yourself a swine.

Since pearl is so fond of copy-pasting, let's take a leaf out of her
book:

"A pearl is a hard, pretty object produced within the soft tissue
(specifically the mantle) of a living shelled mollusk. Just like the
shell of mollusks, a pearl is composed of calcium carbonate in minute
crystalline form, which has been deposited in concentric layers. The
ideal pearl is perfectly round and smooth, but many other shapes of
pearls occur, see baroque pearl.

The finest quality pearls have been highly valued as gemstones and
objects of beauty for many centuries, and the word pearl has become a
metaphor for something rare, fine, and admirable.

Almost any shelled mollusk can, by natural processes, produce some
kind of "pearl" when an irritating microscopic object becomes trapped
within the mollusk's mantle folds, but virtually none of these
"pearls" are considered to be gemstones.

True iridescent pearls, the most desirable pearls, are produced by two
groups of molluscan bivalves or clams. One family lives in the sea:
the pearl oysters. The other, very different group of bivalves live in
freshwater, and these are the river mussels, for example, see the
freshwater pearl mussel.

Sal****er pearls can grow in several species of marine pearl oysters
in the family Pteriidae. Freshwater pearls grow within certain (but by
no means all) species of freshwater mussels in the order Unionida, the
families Unionidae and Margaritiferidae. All of these bivalves are
able to make true pearls because they have a thick inner shell layer
composed of "mother of pearl" or nacre. The mantle of the living
bivalve can create a pearl in the same way that it creates the pearly
inner layer of the shell.

Fine gem quality sal****er and freshwater pearls can and do sometimes
occur completely naturally, but this is a rare occurrence. Many
hundreds of pearl oysters or pearl mussels have to be gathered and
opened (killed) in order to find even one pearl, and for many
centuries that was the only way pearls were obtained. This was the
main reason why pearls fetched such extraordinary prices in the past.
In modern times however, almost all the pearls for sale were formed
with a good deal of expert intervention from human pearl farmers.

A true pearl is made from layers of nacre, by the same living process
as is used in the secretion of the mother of pearl which lines the
shell. A "natural pearl" is one that formed without any human
intervention at all, in the wild, and these are very rare. A "cultured
pearl" on the other hand, is one that has been formed on a pearl farm.
The great majority of pearls on the market are cultured pearls."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearl

Nuff said, methinks....

Dragonblaze

- God? I'm no God. God has mercy. -