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Sea Shells
Sea shells, the natural wonders, strewn along beaches like jewels from the sea, are created by snails, clams, scallops, and other marine mollusks.
We humans wear our bony skeletons on the inside, while showing our softer sides to the outside world. Most mollusks, on the other hand, wear their skeletons on the outside to protect their soft inner bodies.
Seashells occur in a great range of shapes, colors and sizes. One of the smallest seashells is the Pythina clam, a tiny, smooth translucent clam the size of a rice grain that lives attached to the underside of shrimp and crayfish. At the other extreme is the largest known seashell–the giant Tridacna clam of the southwest Pacific. This monster’s shell consists of two attached valves which are four foot long and weigh 500 pounds.
The Amazing Roar of the sea shells:
When you hold the seashell near your ear, you hear the sound which resembles the sound of ocean waves. In reality, it “sounds” like an ocean but is really isn’t. What you are actually hearing is the sound around you vibrating as an echo in the air within the shell. Hold the slit portion of the sea-shell to hear the maximum resonance.
Sea shells do not have any sound of their own. The hard curved surfaces of sea-shells are good reflectors of sound. In other words, the sound waves that you hear when you hold the seashell up to your ear are jumbled-up echoes which sound quite like the ocean waves rising against the shore. If the seashell has a big cavity inside it, you can hear the maximum “roar” of the sea-waves.
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