The documents comprise letter from Sarton asking for information about 'Ye Yin Yang of Hu-tsen' who 'In the XIIIth cent'..'was so sucessful in artificially stimulating oysters to form pearls that his efforts gave rise to a flourishing industry'; copy of Joseph Needham's reply to Sarton; typed draft of the section of 'Science and Civilisation in China' dealing with cultured pearls; typed copy of a George Sarton query for 'Isis' headed 'Who was the inventor of pearl culture?'; letter from L. Carrington Goodrich of Columbia University, New York City, U.S.A. responding to Sarton's query; further letter from Sarton to Needham; two obituaries for Mikimoto Kokichi, who discovered the secret of pearl culture in 1905, (d. 21 September 1954).