NONSUCH 



gardener who showed me that a teacup gave forth 

 identical moanings of the ancient seas. 



When I found that a remarkable and very beauti- 

 fully colored creature inhabited a conch shell and 

 that in addition it made exceedingly delicious soup, 

 my pain at its lack of accumulative, environmental 

 sound-memory became alleviated. As a boy, when I 

 began a collection of shells, I gave no more thought 

 to the owners and makers than I did to the per- 

 sonality of the Knights who had worn the suits of 

 armor in museum cases. I hardly put them in the 

 category which fossils held in medieval philosophy 

 — lusus naturae J acts of God, crystalline precipi- 

 tates — but nevertheless they held places nearer my 

 minerals than my insects. 



One day I lay flat in my glass-bottomed boat 

 drifting slowly across Castle Harbor to the north 

 of Nonsuch. I was on the look-out for a reef favor- 

 able for diving, but suddenly my eye caught a well- 

 marked trail ploughed through eel-grass four 

 fathoms down. At the end of the furrow was a giant 

 conch. We quickly heaved over the anchor and 

 rigged the diving helmet. When I dropped down 

 the ladder and began scouting around the eel-grass 

 I found it was far from easy to locate the great 

 shells. Their trails were lost in the low horizontal 

 perspective and there were many small dead heads 

 of coral which I picked up by mistake. At last, I 

 located one and found it extremely heavy even un- 

 der water. When I turned it over, the huge snail 

 withdrew and rather amazingly squeezed out a 



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