Apart from fish and coral, with their colours and lifestyles, seashells are like jewels in the multi-coloured world beneath the waves. Only seen by most people while walking by the seaside, apart from the familiar ones, which are collected and used to decorate our homes, there are thousands more, less known shells whose beauty would astound us. The beauty of a tiny grain of sand in an oyster changing into
a spectacular pearl or two different types of screw shells adhering to each other, amaze us with their elegance. Out of the close on 100,000 shell varieties some were used as currency in former times because of their pleasing colours and elegance, and nowadays they also take pride of place as decoration in our homes.

MAGICAL SHELLS
Another speciality of seashells was their use in casting spells in ancient times. The history of the use of shells in magic goes back thousands of years. In every age mankind has linked shells to many subjects, both to ward off the evil eye and to symbolise fertility.