The scenario plays out on any beach.  It’s instinctive and universal.  Walk along any beach just along the waterline where the waves roll rhythmically in and you’ll catch yourself doing it:  looking down.  Suddenly, right there, tumbling in sand and foam, you see it!  A fleeting hint of color, a minute rippled edge.  As the water recedes pulling a layer of sand and shell with it, it disappears.  Now you see it, now you don’t!  With impressive reaction time you reach down and grab the illusion.  Slowly you open a dripping handful of sand and peer inside, hoping for the perfect keeper – an intact shell, a wonder nature, strikingly beautiful, elegantly scrolled, perfectly fluted, delicately patterned.