Talk:Pearl hunting

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The following references may be useful when improving this article in the future: "World's oldest pearl discovered near Abu Dhabi". BBC News. 21 October 2019. Retrieved 26 March 2020.

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• The term 'pearl diving' is slang for 'washing the dishes'; as in "I've got to go pearl diving" which means "I need to wash the dishes".

Perhaps this could go on a disambiguation page somewhere. – Fred 02:01, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Why was this changed from diving to hunting? I've only ever heard people refer to it as diving. "Pearl diving" is by far the more common term. Even if "pearl diving" is slang for something else, it seems strange to not use the most common term. QuizzicalBee 19:58, 18 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think the problem is that there are more ways of looking or "hunting" for pearls than just by diving, such as gathering freshwater oysters from shallow water, but the article currently only describes the deepwater diving methods. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 15:44, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Would it make more sense to title the article Pearl collecting or Pearl gathering? Hunting is a loaded term, as it not only suggests a search but also suggests that the prey is mobile - which clams definitely aren't! The new title would remove this ambiguity. 81.156.125.126 (talk) 13:19, 29 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• I can't believe no one thought to mention the 17th century Chinese author Song Yingxing. His treatise outlined a pretty important advancement for pearl divers in East Asia, that being a ship-rope attached securely to their waist while they had a breathing tube attached to their watertight leather face mask allowing them to breath underwater at large depths for long periods of time. Pretty important, surprised no one mentioned it, although Leonardo da Vinci wrote about divers using masks and breathing tubes about 2 and a half centuries before Song Yingxing.--PericlesofAthens 04:01, 10 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• I'd suggest adding a section on Pearl diving in Fiction, as there are a large number of works (e.g. books, films, etc.) where the craft is a main topic. 83.76.179.107 14:57, 3 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• In one book, I read about pearls found in "avalone"(?) vs. oysters, and I don't understand the difference between the two? Are the real pearls always from oysters? What are the different animals that do produce pearls? I suggest adding this information in this entry. Thanks. Also please add a link to the page
  Pearl oyster. 83.76.179.107 14:59, 3 August 2007 (UTC)[reply
  ]
  • That's "abalone", not "avalone". You can find more information on this at the "pearls" entry. I don't believe it has a place here.QuizzicalBee 16:06, 3 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Due to increase of pressure due to depth it is impossible to breath through a tube up to the surface unless a means of pressurising the air is employed. The muscles are not strong enough to overcome the pressure which increases with one atmosphere for every 10 metres depth. This is why snorkellers have tubes of short length which allow them to lie face down in the water but not to submerge.

The breathed out air would also remain in the tube which would have to be breathed back in with its lower oxygen content. This is all covered in the section on snorkelling within Wikipedia Most of the drawings for using tubes for breathing under water are fanciful ideas which were never carried out in practice. --Rodgeratkin (talk) 12:00, 18 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'd just written pretty much the same in a comment on that section - seeing it's not just me thining wonky, I'm now going to remove that section. Sean Heron (talk) 14:33, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

http://books.google.com/books?id=leHFqMQ9mw8C&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false