Page 18 - Boca Club News - February '22

Page 18, Boca Club News

The Arts

Book Reviews...“The Sound of the Sea:

Seashells and the Fate of the Oceans”

and “The World’s Most Beautiful Seashells”

By Nils A. Shapiro
It is almost painful for me to
realize that I have lived for decades
just minutes from the beaches
of both the Pacific and Atlantic
Oceans before having had the
benefit of learning what is in the
pages of author Cynthia Barnett’s
newly published, extraordinarily
informative and richly rewarding book, “The Sound of
the Sea.”
I can only imagine how much more time I would have a Switzerland of medieval times. Queen Khadija oversaw
devoted to—and how much more pleasure I would have production and sold the currency to traders who filled
derived from—walks along those beaches in search of up ships bound for Arabia, Persia, Africa, and beyond...
the miracles of nature about which, despite all my years pronounced conkologists); and worldwide travel that takes It was neither paper nor metal, though it jingled in the
of formal schooling and many hundreds of books read readers from the most exotic strings of Pacific Islands pocket and shined up bright as a fresh-minted coin. The
and enjoyed, I have until now been completely clueless! in search of rare shells to historic palaces whose rooms first global specie was a species. Hidden beneath rocks
Should I be embarrassed to admit I didn’t even know what shimmer from floor to ceiling with walls of shells. and coral ledges in the Indo-Pacific, the world’s humblest
seashells really are? There are surprises of fascinating information on cowrie in size, color, and pattern had an abased role in
Admired and collected throughout human history—at virtually every page of “The Sound of the Sea.” Readers human affairs. The Money Cowrie—named by Linneaus
an auction in the 1790s, a single Matchless Cone shell of this review column, all of whom live within minutes of Cypraea moneta, now classified as Monetaria moneta—
sold for more than six times the price of the painting by the beach, should already have decided to order a copy of makes a glistening shell in the shape of a small shield...”
Jan Vermeer, Woman in Blue Reading a Letter—shells this book. But for those who need more convincing, here ~ “Just after they married in the fall of 1833, Abigail
are made by living marine animals that take minerals is just a taste of what you can expect. For lack of space, I and Marcus Samuel opened a small curio shop in Sailors
such as calcium carbonite from seawater, mix them with have omitted much text in each case and replaced it with Town north of the River Thames in London’s East End...
protein and build the hard shells around them to live in ellipses (...) (They) both grew up in Jewish merchant families that
and as protection against predators! Just as there are many ~ “We walk on a world of shell—the carbonate remains of had emigrated from Holland and Bavaria nearly a
different species of such marine creatures as mollusks, all the calcified life that has ever lived. Added up in the sea century before, traders in antiques, curios, and bric-a-
from the tiniest to giant clams weighing hundreds of and on the land, those remains also represent among the brac. Then not permitted to own land or open shops in
pounds, so there are many thousands of varieties of shell largest stores of carbon on Earth. Shelled planktons and the city proper, the Samuels and other Jewish traders...
sizes, shapes and colors to serve the special needs of their corals and mollusks made some of those oil reservoirs... had to find their niche in the overcrowded East End. The
undersea creators...and their impact on the lives, cultures, They made the limestone aquifers that hold freshwater couple found theirs in seashells. Curiosity cabinets, shell
history—and future—of humankind is a story that begins underground. The calcifying life-forms gave us mountains rooms, and shell grottoes had brought the shell cult to
550 million years ago, when water covered most of our and they gave us marble. Tiny creatures transformed its ostentatious hilt among the upper class and nobility.
planet, before the oceans retreated to their present limits, titanic contours in limestone cliffs from Lake Michigan to Now, the middle classes burned with shell fever. Tropical
and millions of years before life first appeared on land. Moldava; in the karst islands of Vietnam and Greece and seashells decorated parlors and studded parlor crafts.
Cynthia Barnett is the perfect guide to tell this story. the Caribbean, and atop the highest mountains on Earth... This chapter describes how the Samuels’ success
Environmental Journalist in Residence at the University of In the United States, many of us walked our children to with their small shell shop enabled their grandsons to
Florida, she has been honored for her previous writings– the first day of kindergarten on shells.” gradually expand and diversify the family’s business
and this newest book clearly reflects her six years of deep ~ “From a distance, the walls of Rockefeller Center look internationally, to the point where they eventually honored
and comprehensive research, working with the world’s creamy smooth. Look closely, and you’ll see coils and their grandparents by naming the firm Royal Dutch Shell,
foremost shell experts and scientists (conchologists, spirals, fans and curlicues embedded in the limestone, and its emblem, fittingly, became the yellow Scallop shell
quarried in Indiana and formed from denizens of the shallow that you recognize whenever you fill up your car with
sea that covered the Midwest 300 million years ago.” fuel at a gas station of what is today one of the largest
~ “Some mollusks have two retractable eyes, mounted at corporations in the world!
the tip of curious tentacles, that seem to follow you like the But Cynthia Barnett’s book is not limited to stories
Mona Lisa. Others have a hundred electric blue eyes, set of successes. She points out the waves of natural climate
in dazzling rows. They are animals with rapacious tongues changes that have occurred over the hundreds of millions
Captain’s was established in 1980 servicing and rows of teeth to feed big, wolf-hungry stomachs. They of years within the time frame she covers, how they
Palm Beach County and is a privately are animals that dive and leap. Animals that scurry across affected the lives on land and beneath the sea, and what
owned and managed company. the ocean floor, burrow down into sand, climb up rocks, today’s ocean creatures are warning us about right now
Captain’s is committed to providing turn corners, and flip somersaults. Animals that leave as we humans debate futilely among ourselves while time
dependable, reliable and professional tracks like paws in the mud. Animals that swim—propelled runs out. Just as we refer to the world’s forests as “the
ground transportation to and from all
South Florida Airports and Seaports. PBCVH212 by wings graceful as butterflies or clapping shells, clunky lungs of the Earth,” because trees absorb carbon dioxide
To reserve your vehicle: like cartoon clams. Animals that ascend and descend in the from the atmosphere and exhale the oxygen we need to
561-798-2180 or 800-634-7890 www.captainsairport.com water column; the Chambered Nautilus filling its sections breathe—and we still cut down millions of acres of forest
with liquid and gas like a master diver who spent half a every year—Ms. Barnett informs us that the oceans, too,
billion years perfecting buoyancy. absorb carbon dioxide...and the current human-induced
~ “Ten thousand feet above sea level in the Andean climate is warming the oceans to the point that species are
highlands of ancient Peru, conch-shell trumpets bellowed rapidly dying out, in addition to the amount of pollution,
through a steep river valley, calling worshippers to poisons and plastics we dump into the world’s waters that
the temple complex at Chavin de Huantar. Inside the grows unabated.
temple, conch voices echoed in the stone walls and How ironic it will be if some of the creatures that create
deep underground, penetrating subterranean altars and the beautiful seashells we so admire outlast us, too, just
worshippers’ hearts in haunting, low notes that seemed as they did the dinosaurs and many before us, because we
to come from everywhere and nowhere all at once...the failed to heed their warnings.
calls of the conchs would carry more than a mile through *****
the valley, auguring to travelers that they were nearing “The Sound of the Sea” is only the second book among
Chavin, a religious complex that thrived roughly between the almost 200 I have reviewed for this column that,
1,500 and 500 BCE. The architectural wonder predates from the moment I started reading it, motivated me to
the Inca and Peru’s Machu Picchu by more than two immediately purchase a companion volume to keep nearby
thousand years. As the author points out, the entire temple as a reference. “The World’s Most Beautiful Seashells”
was designed and built with echo chamber tunnels to take is an oversized volume filled with full-color photographs
advantage of the haunting sound made when the priests of hundreds of seashells conveniently organized by species
blew into the conch-shell (pronounced conk), so that the and categories—and with brief additional facts about
people would associate it with messages from the gods. each—so that, as I read Cynthia Barnett’s fascinating book
~ The first global currency was a seashell! “In the (which includes a black-and-white drawing preceding
fourteenth century, a queen known as Rehendi Khadijah each chapter), I could turn to the section in this stunning
ruled the islands of the Maldives with epic command... volume to see the seashells in their wide varieties of colors
The chain of atolls, coral reefs, and low-lying islands 600 and shapes. A sticker on the front cover notes that it won
miles off the tip of India was the center of production for the “Best Coffee-table Book Award” from the National
the first global money, making the Maldives something of Association of Independent Publishers. Well deserved!