Sherbrooke vs Pearl

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Sherbrooke (; French pronunciation: ​[ʃɛʁbʁuk]; Quebec French pronunciation [ʃɛʁbʁʊk]) is a city in southern Quebec, Canada. Sherbrooke is situated at the confluence of the Saint-François (St. Francis) and Magog rivers in the heart of the Estrie administrative region. Sherbrooke is also the name of a territory equivalent to a regional county municipality (TE) and census division (CD) of Quebec, coextensive with the city of Sherbrooke. With 161,323 residents at the 2016 census, It is the sixth largest city in the province and the thirtieth largest in Canada. The Sherbrooke Census Metropolitan Area had 212,105 inhabitants, making it the fourth largest metropolitan area in Quebec and nineteenth largest in Canada. Originally known as Hyatt's Mill, it was renamed after Sir John Coape Sherbrooke (1764–1840), a British general who was Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia (1812–1816), and Governor General of British North America (1816–1818); the family is named after Shirebrook, Derbyshire.Sherbrooke is the primary economic, political, cultural and institutional centre of Estrie, and was known as the Queen of the Eastern Townships at the beginning of the 20th century.

There are eight institutions educating 40,000 students and employing 11,000 people, 3,700 of whom are professors, teachers and researchers. The direct economic impact of these institutions exceeds 1 billion dollars. The proportion of university students is 10.32 students per 100 inhabitants. In proportion to its population, Sherbrooke has the largest concentration of students in Quebec.Since the nineteenth century, Sherbrooke has been a manufacturing centre. This segment of the economy has experienced a considerable transformation in recent decades as a result of the decline of the city's traditional manufacturing sectors. The service sector occupies a prominent place in the city's economy, alongside a growing knowledge-based economy.The Sherbrooke region is surrounded by mountains, rivers and lakes. There are several ski hills nearby and various tourist attractions in regional flavour. Mont-Bellevue Park, a large park in the city, is used for downhill skiing.

Source: Wikipedia

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A pearl is a hard, glistening object produced within the soft tissue (specifically the mantle) of a living shelled mollusk or another animal, such as fossil conulariids. Just like the shell of a mollusk, a pearl is composed of calcium carbonate (mainly aragonite or a mixture of aragonite and calcite) in minute crystalline form, which has deposited in concentric layers. The ideal pearl is perfectly round and smooth, but many other shapes, known as baroque pearls, can occur. The finest quality of natural pearls have been highly valued as gemstones and objects of beauty for many centuries. Because of this, pearl has become a metaphor for something rare, fine, admirable and valuable. The most valuable pearls occur spontaneously in the wild, but are extremely rare. These wild pearls are referred to as natural pearls. Cultured or farmed pearls from pearl oysters and freshwater mussels make up the majority of those currently sold.

Imitation pearls are also widely sold in inexpensive jewelry, but the quality of their iridescence is usually very poor and is easily distinguished from that of genuine pearls. Pearls have been harvested and cultivated primarily for use in jewelry, but in the past were also used to adorn clothing. They have also been crushed and used in cosmetics, medicines and paint formulations. Whether wild or cultured, gem-quality pearls are almost always nacreous and iridescent, like the interior of the shell that produces them. However, almost all species of shelled mollusks are capable of producing pearls (technically "calcareous concretions") of lesser shine or less spherical shape. Although these may also be legitimately referred to as "pearls" by gemological labs and also under U.S. Federal Trade Commission rules, and are formed in the same way, most of them have no value except as curiosities.

Source: Wikipedia