The shell's story

[Three]

“Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”

- Charles Darwin








Check it out! I found this beautiful memorabilia on top of the mountains the other day. That’s right, the mountains, which used to be underwater. (maybe the shell isn't that old, but it makes no difference to what I want to share here.)

I went for a hike through one of Monte Sano’s many trails. It was quite exciting for me since I had never been on this particular path before. It had an untamed quality that I really liked, it barely resembled a trail at all. Every few feet I would have to duck and dodge large spider webs that blocked the walkway, which I would often only notice once it was right in front of my face. Another indication of how long it had been since anyone had walked this trail. 

It was very serene, a stark and very much welcome contrast to the work environments I spent most of my time in throughout the summer. It was a great compliment to the massage a had the day before. 

So, why am I holding this shell? Because I want to share with you what I see when I look at this shell. I want to go further than compliment its beauty by sharing something that I believe to be even more moving and that is the shell’s story. Science to me is not about cold dry facts, it is not merely interesting. It’s as touching as any sonnet or sonata. Science is poetry. follows is a Passage from Richard Dawkins’ book “The Greatest Show on Earth.” This is where I learned to write and I would highly recommend this book.






“Short of rocketing into space, it is hard to imagine a bolder or more life-changing step than leaving the water for dry land. The two life-zones are different in so many ways that moving from one to the other demands a radical shift in almost all parts of the body. Gills that are good at extracting oxygen from water are all but useless in air, and lungs are useless in water. Methods of propulsion that are speedy, graceful and efficient in water are dangerously clumsy on land, and vise versa. No wonder ‘fish out of water’ and ‘like a drowning man’ have both become proverbial phrases. And no wonder ‘missing links’ in this region of the fossil record are of more than ordinary interest.

If you go back far enough, everything lived in sea-watery, salty alma-mater of all life. At various points in evolutionary history, enterprising individuals from many animal groups moved out on to the land, sometimes eventually to the most parched deserts, taking their own private sea water with them in blood and cellular fluids. In addition to the reptiles, birds, mammals and insects we see all around us, other groups that succeeded in making the great trek out of life’s watery womb include scorpions, snails, crustaceans such as woodlice and land crabs, millipedes and centipedes, spiders and their kin, and at least three phyla or worms. And we mustn’t forget the plants, onlie begetters of usable carbon, without whose prior invasion of the land none of the migrations could have happened. ” -Richard Dawkins