Page 11 - Martin Downs Bulletin - February '22

Martin Downs, Page 11

Book revieW

The Sound of the Sea: Seashells There are
And The Fate Of The Oceans surprises of
fascinating
And The World’s Most information on
virtually every
Beautiful Seashells page of The
Sound of the
By Nils A. Shapiro Sea. Readers
It is almost painful for me of this review
to realize that I have lived column, all of
for decades just minutes whom live within minutes of the beach, should already have
from the beaches of both decided to order a copy of this book. But for those who need Chavin, a religious complex that thrived roughly between
the Pacific and Atlantic more convincing, here is just a taste of what you can expect. 1,500 and 500 BCE. The architectural wonder predates the
oceans before having had For lack of space, I have omitted much text in each case and Inca and Peru’s Machu Picchu by more than two thousand
the benefit of learning what is replaced it with ellipses (...). years. As the author points out, the entire temple was designed
in the pages of author Cynthia ~ “We walk on a world of shell – the carbonate remains of all and built with echo chamber tunnels to take advantage of the
Barnett’s newly published, the calcified life that has ever lived. Added up in the sea and on haunting sound made when the priests blew into the conch-
extraordinarily informative the land, those remains also represent among the largest stores shell (pronounced conk), so that the people would associate
and richly rewarding book, of carbon on Earth. Shelled planktons and corals and mollusks it with messages from the gods.
The Sound of the Sea. made some of those oil reservoirs ... They made the limestone ~ The first global currency was a seashell! “In the fourteenth
I can only imagine how much more time I would have aquifers that hold freshwater underground. The calcifying century, a queen known as Rehendi Khadijah ruled the islands
devoted to – and how much more pleasure I would have life-forms gave us mountains and they gave us marble. Tiny of the Maldives with epic command ... The chain of atolls, coral
derived from – walks along those beaches in search of creatures transformed titanic contours in limestone cliffs from reefs, and low-lying islands 600 miles off the tip of India was
the miracles of nature about which, despite all my years Lake Michigan to Moldava; in the karst islands of Vietnam and the center of production for the first global money, making
of formal schooling and many hundreds of books read Greece and the Caribbean, and atop the highest mountains on the Maldives something of a Switzerland of medieval times.
and enjoyed, I have until now been completely clueless! Earth ... In the United States, many of us walked our children Queen Khadija oversaw production and sold the currency to
Should I be embarrassed to admit I didn’t even know to the first day of kindergarten on shells.” traders who filled up ships bound for Arabia, Persia, Africa,
what seashells really are? ~ “From a distance, the walls of Rockefeller Center look and beyond ... It was neither paper nor metal, though it jingled
Admired and collected throughout human history – at an creamy smooth. Look closely, and you’ll see coils and spirals, in the pocket and shined up bright as a fresh-minted coin. The
auction in the 1790s, a single Matchless Cone shell sold for fans and curlicues embedded in the limestone, quarried in first global specie was a species. Hidden beneath rocks and
more than six times the price of the painting by Jan Vermeer, Indiana and formed from denizens of the shallow sea that coral ledges in the Indo-Pacific, the world’s humblest cowrie
Woman in Blue Reading a Letter – shells are made by living covered the Midwest 300 million years ago.” in size, color, and pattern had an abased role in human affairs.
marine animals that take minerals such as calcium carbonite ~ “Some mollusks have two retractable eyes, mounted at the The Money Cowrie—named by Linneaus Cypraea moneta, now
from seawater, mix them with protein and build the hard shells tip of curious tentacles, that seem to follow you like the Mona classified as Monetaria moneta—makes a glistening shell in
around them to live in and as protection against predators! Just Lisa. Others have a hundred electric blue eyes, set in dazzling the shape of a small shield...”
as there are many different species of such marine creatures as rows. They are animals with rapacious tongues and rows of ~ “Just after they married in the fall of 1833, Abigail and
mollusks, from the tiniest to giant clams weighing hundreds of teeth to feed big, wolf-hungry stomachs. They are animals Marcus Samuel opened a small curio shop in Sailors Town
pounds, so there are many thousands of varieties of shell sizes, that dive and leap. Animals that scurry across the ocean floor, north of the River Thames in London’s East End ... (They)
shapes and colors to serve the special needs of their undersea burrow down into sand, climb up rocks, turn corners, and flip both grew up in Jewish merchant families that had emigrated
creators ... and their impact on the lives, cultures, history and somersaults. Animals that leave tracks like paws in the mud. from Holland and Bavaria nearly a century before, traders in
future of humankind is a story that begins 550 million years Animals that swim – propelled by wings graceful as butterflies antiques, curios, and bric-a-brac. Then not permitted to own
ago, when water covered most of our planet, before the oceans or clapping shells, clunky like cartoon clams. Animals that land or open shops in the city proper, the Samuels and other
retreated to their present limits, and millions of years before ascend and descend in the water column; the chambered Jewish traders ... had to find their niche in the overcrowded
life first appeared on land. nautilus filling its sections with liquid and gas like a master East End. The couple found theirs in seashells. Curiosity
Cynthia Barnett is the perfect guide to tell this story. diver who spent half a billion years perfecting buoyancy. cabinets, shell rooms, and shell grottoes had brought the shell
Environmental Journalist in Residence at the University of ~ “Ten thousand feet above sea level in the Andean highlands cult to its ostentatious hilt among the upper class and nobility.
Florida, she has been honored for her previous writings – and of ancient Peru, conch-shell trumpets bellowed through a Now, the middle classes burned with shell fever. Tropical
this newest book clearly reflects her six years of deep and steep river valley, calling worshippers to the temple complex seashells decorated parlors and studded parlor crafts.
comprehensive research, working with the world’s foremost at Chavin de Huantar. Inside the temple, conch voices This chapter describes how the Samuels’ success with their
shell experts and scientists (conchologists, pronounced echoed in the stone walls and deep underground, penetrating small shell shop enabled their grandsons to gradually expand
conkologists); and worldwide travel that takes readers from subterranean altars and worshippers’ hearts in haunting, low and diversify the family’s business internationally, to the point
the most exotic strings of Pacific Islands in search of rare shells notes that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere all at where they eventually honored their grandparents by naming
to historic palaces whose rooms shimmer from floor to ceiling once ... the calls of the conchs would carry more than a mile the firm Royal Dutch Shell, and its emblem, fittingly, became
with walls of shells. through the valley, auguring to travelers that they were nearing the yellow scallop shell that you recognize whenever you fill
up your car with fuel at a gas station of what is today one of
the largest corporations in the world!
But Cynthia Barnett’s book is not limited to stories of
successes. She points out the waves of natural climate changes
that have occurred over the hundreds of millions of years
within the time frame she covers, how they affected the lives
on land and beneath the sea, and what today’s ocean creatures
NoN-Toxic cancer immunotherapy are warning us about right now as we humans debate futilely
among ourselves while time runs out. Just as we refer to the
world’s forests as “the lungs of the Earth,” because trees absorb
Available NoW carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and exhale the oxygen
we need to breathe – and we still cut down millions of acres
of forest every year – Barnett informs us that the oceans, too,
Safe and Effective! absorb carbon dioxide ... and the current human-induced
climate is warming the oceans to the point that species are
rapidly dying out, in addition to the amount of pollution,
This is the Original Immunotherapy that poisons and plastics we dump into the world’s waters that
balances and optimizes your immune system to grows unabated.
How ironic it will be if some of the creatures that create the
fight almost any type of cancer. beautiful seashells we so admire outlast us, too, just as they
did the dinosaurs and many before us, because we failed to
heed their warnings.
Hundreds of successes over the years. *****
The Sound of the Sea is only the second book among the
Continuously available since 1977 almost 200 I have reviewed for this column that, from the
moment I started reading it, motivated me to immediately
in Freeport, Grand Bahama Island purchase a companion volume to keep nearby as a reference.
The World’s Most Beautiful Seashells is an oversized volume
filled with full-color photographs of hundreds of seashells
See our website for more info: conveniently organized by species and categories—and with

www.Quantumimmunotherapy.net brief additional facts about each—so that, as I read Cynthia
Barnett’s fascinating book (which includes a black-and-white
drawing preceding each chapter), I could turn to the section in
or call for more information: Toll-free number (561) 766-0878 this stunning volume to see the seashells in their wide varieties
of colors and shapes. A sticker on the front cover notes that it
Email: Quantimmuno@gmail.com won the “Best Coffee Table Book Award” from the National
Association of Independent Publishers. Well deserved!