Lynn and Art,
You will notice I have taken the high road here -- or maybe I just gave
up.
Tom Eichhorst in New Mexico, USA (where all the place names sound just
like they are spelled -- like Abiquiu' (aah-bey-kew) or Gila (hee-la) or
Jemez (hey-mezz) or Madrid where even the people who live there cannot
decide if the accent is on the last syllable (like the Madrid in Spain)
or on the first syllable like I learned it growing up. And when you
think you have it figured out we have Catron which is pronounced
(cat-tren) with the accent on the first syllable not caw-trone with the
accent on the last syllable)
And to tie in with shells. Tomorrow we are going into the Jemez
Mountains to look for fossils. We will find brachiopods for sure but
this time we are going to look around for some fossil mollusks also.
Hard to find as the only site I know close by had a lot of volcanic
activity (the Jemez was one big, big volcano) and it distorted a lot of
the fossil beds with the mollusks.