EXERCISE N. 12

Describe briefly the following things. Indicate what they are used for and what they look like.

A possible 4 marks for each answer.

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E.g. socks covering of wool or cotton etc for the foot and ankle

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EXERCISE N. 13

Pearls have always been one of the most valued of all jewels. These jewels grow inside oysters, and until the twentieth century large good quality pearls were sold for enormous sums of money. A pearl is formed when an oyster tries to protect its soft body from an irritant such as a piece of sand or shell. The oyster secretes multiple layers of nacre that eventually become the pearl. There are six physical factors that determine the quality of the pearl: nacre, lustre, colour, size, shape and surface texture. The most valuable pearls are perfectly round. Not all pearls are white but come in a variety of colours such as pink, cream, gold and black.

In nature only one or two pearls are found in several thousand oysters. It was a Japanese man called Kokichi Mikimoto who discovered a method of cultivating pearls and thus reducing their cost. Mikimoto came from a humble background: he was the son of a noodle-maker. He married a woman named Ume, and the two of them spent years developing his method. Mikimoto implanted a piece of mussel shell into the oysters and returned them to the sea floor in mesh baskets. The oysters were regularly cleaned and checked. This might seem a simple enough process, but in fact it was very complex. It took more than ten years of intensive work before the first low-quality pearls were produced. However, Mikimoto eventually mastered his technique and now the company he started is a multi-million dollar business.

In 1927, Mikimoto met the great inventor Thomas Edison. 'There are two things which couldn't be made at my laboratory,' said Edison, 'diamonds and pearls. It is one of the wonders of the world that you were able to culture pearls.'

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