Note 445 — Chapter IV · THE INDUSTRIAL ARTS.
Walter Armstrong translation
Layard, Discoveries, p. 597. The oldest mention of the pearl fisheries of the Persian Gulf is to be found in those fragments of Nearchus that have been preserved in the pages of Arrian (Indica, xxxviii. 7); but it is probable that the search for pearl oysters began in those waters many centuries before. The Assyrians, as we have seen, made use both of pearl and mother-of-pearl.