[Chemical Compositions]

Pearl mainly contains Calcium Carbonate and is rich in amino acid, Leucine, Methionine, Alanine, Glycine, Glutamic acid, Aspartic acid. Besides, it has more than 30 kinds of microelements, taurine, plenty vitamin and peptide.

[Character Identification]

Natural pearl shows various round shapes, such as round, oval round, irregular round or long round. It is 1-6mm in diameters. It is smooth and has beautiful overtone luster, like white, yellow white, light pink or light blue. Most decorative pearls have holes in the middle. It is solid and hard to break and the cross section is in layers. You can hear cracks when using fire to burn it. It has no smell and the taste is a little salty.

Cultivated pearl is similar to natural pearl but weak in luster, has round sand or Abalone shell grains in the middle of cross section. There is thin nacre in the cover and only this nacre can be used for medicine. It has no smell and the taste is a little salty. Whereas, the appearance of Hepu ecological pearl has greatly improved the quality of cultivated pearl.

The best pearl is in round and complete shape, and has translucent luster, jewelry luster and hard nature.

[Nature and Flavor]

Sweet, salty and cold

The main ingredient of pearl is Calcium Carbonate, which occupies 82% to 93%. Besides, pearl contains 4%-14% keratin, 2%-4% of water, dozes of amino acid and 28 kinds of microelements, including anti-aging substance of Se and Ge. The hardness of pearl is 3 and the specific weight is 2.71, the index of refraction is 1.53-1.68. Pearl is measured in Guling and 1 Guling equals to 0.0648g. Pearl crystal presents vertical order in bead-shaped or spearhead-shaped, which forms nacre in eradiation shape. Under the light, this nacre in eradiation shape will generate iridescence luster, which is pearl radiance. The value of pearl depends on the size, roundness, luster and shape of the pearl.

An unpolished gem is not precious, but the superior pearl taking from the mussel is a beautiful decoration before polishing. In this case, some gem experts think that pearl may be the earliest human accessories. It is not documented when pearl was discovered because pearl is hard to be handed down for it is easy to be damaged. The earliest pearl in earth is excavated from the Triassic in Hungary about 200million years ago and is only 0.1mm in diameter. The pearl discovered in the Miocene strata in Germany is about 20million years ago and is 4mm in diameter. These pearl fossils, hiding in the remote conch, not only keep the glittery quality of the pearl, but also keep the secrets of pearl formation after intense geological activity in the long years.

About five thousand years ago, Ancient Indian people started to list the pearl as treasures which were called Seven Treasures of Buddhism together with religion, and have enjoyed extremely high reputation in Ganges culture. Similar to India, China is one of the nations who first realized and utilized pearl. “Sea Herbal Medicine” called pearl as true pearl, which connotes the pure and true effects of pearl in medicine. “ Erya” praised pearl as the “Beauty from Western World” together with jade. Qin Zhao Wang called pearl as the head of “precious treasures” together with Jade. “Book·Yugong”, the classic of Confucian, recorded that Huaiyi Pearl was listed into the compulsory tributes at that time, which means the emergence of freshwater pearl in Huaishui and Yishui in the Xiayu era of 2200 BC as the latest.

Pearl is crystalline and dignified, round and colorful, elegant and pure, is called the queen of gem. It is regarded as the lucky stone for people who are born in June, and also the memory stone for marriage on thirteenth and thirtieth anniversary. Pearl, possessing magnificent color and elegant quality, represents health, purity, wealth and happiness and is always loved by people since ancient time.