Pearl or parasite enters a bivalve mollusk and settles inside the shell. The mollusk, irritated by the intruder, forms a pearl sac of external mantle tissue cells and secretes the calcium carbonate and conchiolin to cover the irritant. This secretion process is repeated many times, thus producing a pearl. Natural pearls come in many shapes, with perfectly round ones being comparatively rare. Typically, the build-up of a natural pearl consists of a brown central zone formed by columnar calcium carbonate (usually calcite, sometimes columnar aragonite) and a yellowish to white outer zone consisting of nacre (tabular aragonite). In a pearl cross-section
The White Pearl (novel) The White Pearl (novel) The White Pearl is a 2012 novel by Kate Furnivall set during the Japanese occupation of Malaya in the early 1940s. "The White Pearl's" initially takes place on a rubber plantation, later moving onto the yacht from which the novel takes its name. The novel's main character, Constance "Connie" Hadley, accidentally kills a Malay woman who places a curse upon Hadley and her family several minutes before passing away. The killed woman is the mother of teenage twins, Maya and Razak, and Hadley endeavours to meet with the pair after a troubling guilt affects her already