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39.

of Mexico and Central America, another at the Society Islands, and the third in the East Indies and North Australia. They afford Mother of Pearl, from which buttons and ornaments are made, and occasionally beautiful pearls. Pearls are believed to be the result of disease, or of irritation caused by a piece of shell or grain of sand, or some other foreign substance [[^introduced between the mantle & the shell]]. The animal from time to time secretes a liquid substance