Plainfield High School - Milestone Yearbook (Plainfield, NJ)

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144 THE ORACLE that good building sand was scarce at Manila, they were transporting it there. The particular grain of sand with which this history is concerned was very small, rough and white. It was presently much whiter, for a little puff of wind, aided by the roll of the waves, started it rolling off the deck of the lugger. It reached the water in company with several other grains of sand, but it soon separated from their company and continued alone its zigzag- course to the bottom. Down on the bottom, with about sixty feet of water over its head, an oyster was lazily lying, open mouthed, waiting for a chance to bring it its dinner. It was not a dainty little oyster, such as is swallowed by some of us with questionable pleasure and a little lemon juice, but it was a large oyster with a shell ten inches across. In truth it must have been the grand- father of the cluster of smaller oysters which surrounded it. To-day chance was mischievous and instead of bringing the oyster some nice, rich, live, sea mud, it piloted to the open shell a small white piece of sand, much whiter now from the effect of its journey through the water. Now oysters .do not live on grains of sand, and to make matters worse the grain of sand had not slid down the immobile mouth of the oyster but had lodged be- tween the oyster and its shell. We all know how a grain of sand lodged in the eye feels and how we have to take pains to remove it. This grain of sand affected the oyster in much the same way. Working deeper and deeper into the shell, it irritated more and more, but the oyster, not being blessed with fingers, was forced to acquiesce to its tenantage. Nature, the enemy of chance, which had caused all the trouble, foreseeing just such predicaments, has provided oysters with a substance called nacre. So when a little piece of sand causes trouble, the oyster covers it with nacre, which is hard but smooth so that it allays irritation. The more troublesome the sand, the more nacre the oyster uses. This piece of sand must have been especially troublesome as it received a coating of nacre which would have made a Maiden Lane jeweler shrug his shoulders with covetousness. But what have jewelers in common with sand? Well, to make a short story, this sand in combination with nacre is a pearl and its home is a pearl oyster. I say that the nacre and grain of sand make the pearl, because one could not be a pearl without the other. The sand is the cause, the nacre is the result, and without the cause there would be no result. So when you look at a pearl, remember that in the center of that pearl there is a grain of sand or some similar substance. Several years had now passed since the sand’s advent into the

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W| The ORACLE | “Tam Sir Oracle, and when I ope my lips, let no dog bark.” BOARD OF EDITORS Editor-in-Chief, PERCY M. BRowN, ’05. Literary Editor, School Editor, Exchange Editor, Corresponding Editor, LILLIAN SNODGRASS, ’05. ANTOINETTE AALHOLM, ’06, WESTON GAVETT, ’07. BENJAMIN HERMAN, ’06. Business Manager, . Assistant Business Managers. HOWARD LAPSLEY, ’06. GEORGE BENTLEY, ’05, ANNA RUNYON, ’05. Associate Editors, Mr. LINDSEY BEST, y ' Miss GRACE E. BURROUGHS. STAFF OF REPORTERS 204, FRANCES VANDEVENTER, 205, AIMEE CONANT, FRANCIS ANDERSON. CHESTER BRIGGS. 06, GERTRUDE HUNTER, ’07, GERTRUDE ABBOTT, DUDLEY STRONG. GILBERT GRIGGS. Published on the first Wednesday of every month during the school year, by the students of the Plainfield (N. J.) High School. Printed by THE RECORDER PRESS, Babcock Building, Plainfield. 10 CENTS THE COPY 75 CENTS THE YEAR VoL. 2 COMMENCEMENT NUMBER No. 9 JUNE, 1904 (he eriiston? ola Gram or, “Sand [This Essay won the George H. Babcock Prize in English Composition. ] NUMBER of years ago, a lugger, bound from Mindoro to Manila, was being coaxed by a gentle east wind through St. Bern ardino Strait. Its cargo was very commonplace, in fact even dirty, for it was a cargo of sand. Moreover the sand itself was not out of the ordinary. It was not the romantic sea sand which is ground from coral and shells and carried about over many miles of ocean bottom until it is finally tossed upon some beach, but it was sand formed of rock waste which had been lying for innumerable years in a dried-up river valley in Mindoro. This was not a much-traveled sand but it was a very humble stay-at-home sand which had started life as rock somewhere upon the mountain side. Under the in- fluence of rain and weather the rock had gradually become pulverized and carried to the valley below where men had found it; -and as these men knew

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THE ORACLE 145 oyster. During these years the oyster and the pearl had both grown until they were of regal size. The pearling fleet, of some thirty fishing luggers, was busily engaged in its operations during the summer of 1880. The beautiful dawn of a promising fishing day sent the fleet scattering over the oyster patch in St. Bernardino Strait. This patch was some two miles in extent, so that each boat got its fair allotment of fishing ground. One little boat dropped close inshore and made ready to send its diver, a sandy- haired Scotchman, overboard. Necessity has made the use of modern diving gear absolutely impera- tive in pearl fishing. In past years native divers dove overboard and tore what shells they could away from the bottom and in the course of two minutes rose to the surface and made ready for another dive. This method of fishing was successful in water not much deeper than thirty feet, but when pearls began to give out in shallow water, modern, element-defying armor was called into play, so now all pearl fishing is done by helmeted divers. As native divers proved deficient in the use of these diving suits, white men have superseded the brown Filipinos. When the small boat, before mentioned, dropped anchor in about sixty feet of water, the Scotchman stepped into his heavy rubber suit; his large one eyed helmet was screwed on; the pump was started by two brawny Filipinos; and with a splash and a rush of bubbles to the surface, the diver dropped overboard. After a minute of the crushing sensation felt by divers after dropping overboard, the diver got his sea legs on and commenced work. But my goodness, what a place to work in! It was a sea garden such as could not be equaled by all the work that time and money could command. Sea anemones, coral clusters of every shade of pink and white, enormous barnacles, sea plants that would put the most delicate lace to shame, sway- ing in the gentle ocean movement and surrounded by many sun-colored fish, were everywhere. It is in such places as this that pearl divers in tropical seas work. Our diver, having reached the bottom and adjusted the air valves in his helmet, strode about in search of large and ancient oysters in which perhaps lay his fortune. Whenever he laid aside his knife and oyster bag and stopped to rest, many inquisitive fish gathered round him, but his slight- est motion sent all of them scattering pell mell for shelter. Going from clus- ter to cluster of oysters, he soon filled his bag with the largest of them, but noticing an oyster of great size near by, he started to tear it from its abode of many years. It was so wedged in by smaller oysters that his first at-