Page twoSea Silk, from P.1light, they shine like gold.It has also been certifiedthat the controversialSt.Veronica’s Veil, alsoknown as the Sudarium, thatallegedly reproduces the Christ’s face afterbeing used by St. Veronica to comfort himon his way to crucifixion, is, be it miraculousor not, made of this silk.A velvety strand from theMediterranean Sea<strong>The</strong> byssus, better known as the silk ofthe sea, [is used today] the same way womenin ancient Mesopotamia used to weave it inDetail of byssus canvasWeaving the byssus in Sardinia.Photos by Angela Corrias.order to make clothes for their kings.<strong>The</strong> byssus is a fine fabric producedfrom the velvety strand of the noble penshell, or pinna nobilis, an endangered fanshapedspecies of mollusc, native of theMediterranean Sea bed. Originally, the penshell used to be fished in order to pull thebyssus out, but [local artisans] have comeup with a special cut so [they] can take thesecreted material without killing the preciousanimal.<strong>The</strong> pen shell offers ten centimetersof byssus per year. To gather 200 grams ofbyssus, [weavers] need to go on 300 divings.It doesn’t grow on the bottom of the shell,like many people think, but on the side.After collecting the byssus, the firststep is to leave the raw material to soakin a mixture of eight seaweeds. Once dry,the artisans comb it with a wool card andfinally twist the fine filaments together with aspindle made of oleander, forming the gildedthread. <strong>The</strong> yarn is spun quite a few timesin order to make it strong enough to beemployed in the loom and woven with theirslender fingers.Due to the scarcity of this type of silk,the difficulty in finding and working it,the byssus has always been too expensiveto be quotable, and in ancient times onlypharaohs, Roman emperors, kings or highpriests could afford such luxury.Editor’s note: Angela Corrias is a freelanceItalian journalist. She specializes in travelwriting with the aim to combine her passionfor travelling with a socially aware writing.She regularly updates her travel blog www.travelcalling.blogspot.com.Island Music Festival - SSC Booth Friday, March 18th, 2011Booth - close-up Booth - day with customers Booth - day with more customersChuck Jones Festival with booth Mary Jo Bopp
Page threeBill from p.1William J.Clench(now the American Malacological Society)held its annual meeting at the Naples Beach<strong>Club</strong>. What grabbed my attention in themeeting announcement was the chanceto take a field trip to collect “Ligs” in theEverglades with none other than Dr. WilliamJ. Clench.If you don’t know of the impact BillClench had on malacology, Google his nameand read the touching biography compiledby his long-time associate, the late Dr. RuthD. Turner, upon his death at age 87 in 1984.Bill was curator of the mollusk collectionat Harvard’s Museum of ComparativeZoology for 40 years, wrote nearly 500scientific papers and named at least 200taxon.But over and above his academic andcuratorial fame, he was first and foremost afield observer and collector. Tucker Abbottintroduced him to me at the Jacksonville<strong>Shell</strong> Show in 1975. Bill had been Tucker’sPh.D mentor at Harvard and the two hadremained close friends.<strong>The</strong> chance to go “ligging” in PinecrestHammock 88, where Bill had first collectedin the 1920s, was too much to resist. Keep inmind that he was just three months shy of his80th birthday on that memorable day.We were advised to wear old clothesand take “something to drink”. I stockedup with a six-pack of iced tea in a plasticcooler that could be slung over my shoulder.Bill had his own ideas about “something todrink“, about which more later. <strong>The</strong>re were20 of us in the group that boarded a bus atthe hotel early on a blazing hot Saturdayafternoon.Bill looked like anything but an IvyLeague academic. He was wearing sturdywork shoes and a pair of bib overalls over aT-shirt. This ensemble was capped off by afloppy old straw hat and a pair of sunglasses.<strong>The</strong>re was a suspicious-looking bulge in hiship pocket.As the bus cruised east on the TamiamiTrail, there was a lot of nervous chit-chat,much of it involving snakes and alligatorsand the possibility/probably of encounteringeither/both. We were, quite obviously, not anEverglades-savvy crew.In something less than an hour, the busTwo of the forms of L. fasciatus that Bill described in the 1920s.pulled off to the side of the Tamiami Trail,right at the “Entering Dade County” sign.Bill assembled his motley crew. We wereeach issued a “lig pole” without the slightestidea what it was or how to use it. Instructionsfollowed.Bill pointed off to the south, where wecould see a slightly-trodden trail through thegrass. “That’s where we’re going,” he said.“Follow me and don’t get lost.”<strong>The</strong> first part of our hike didn’t lookvery Evergladesy at all. It was more likewalking through a meadow of scraggly grass.<strong>The</strong>re obviously had been some loggingactivity sometime in the distant past as therewere numerous large stumps of oak and slashpine. <strong>The</strong>re were no snakes and no alligators.<strong>The</strong>re was also no shade. It was hot.We walked south, we soon sensed theland starting to rise ever so gently. <strong>The</strong>n, nottoo far away, we saw a large clump of trees.When we reached the shade, Bill gave us ourfirst Everglades 101 lecture.“This is what we call a hammock,” hesaid. “It’s actually a little island. Before theystarted messing with the Everglades, the landwe just walked over would have been undera few inches of water, all moving very slowlyto the south, toward Florida Bay. Hammocksare high spots where trees and shrubs areable to take root and grow.“<strong>The</strong>re used to be ‘ligs’ in thishammock,” he explained, “but it’s been overcollected.I was first here in 1923,” he added,almost as an afterthought.And so we continued our journeysouthward in the sun, through anotherhammock, then back on the trail (more sun)and then we arrived at Pinecrest Hammock88. It was quite large. <strong>The</strong> trees were a mixof various palms, oaks and pines.At this point I’d guess we had walkedabout two miles into the Everglades.Everything was completely quiet except forthe whisper of a gentle wind through thetrees. Our noisy chit-chat had died down,replaced by little glances, whispers, “oohs”and “aahs“. We’d all quite suddenly beensmitten by the quiet, almost mysterious,beauty of the Everglades.Bill gathered us around. “Look on theground,” he said. “You’ll often find nicedead specimens near the base of the tree.”And he was right.I never used my “lig pole:. For somereason, it just didn’t seem right. And Inoticed that most of my fellow adventurerswere of a like mind. I poked through thedebris under the trees. Most of the shellswere broken or badly weathered, but Istill managed to gather about a dozen nicespecimensOne of the few who did use her “ligpole” was Gertrude Moller, one of thefounders of the Jacksonville <strong>Shell</strong> <strong>Club</strong> andthe only person, other than Bill, that I knewwhen our little expedition boarded the bus atthe Naples Beach <strong>Club</strong>.Gert removed two lovely specimensfrom their Everglades home and took themback to Jacksonville, where she was able tointroduce them successfully to trees in herback yard. When I next saw her two yearslater she said they wereSee Bill, p.6
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