Dear "Worldwide";-
   I'm delighted that you have finally brought shells into the discussion (before someone demanded my execution).
   You have opened a new can of worms---or snails. One wonders exactly how many species of mollusks might inhabit Liberty Island---or, perhaps, Central Park, or Golden Gate Park. In some of our semi-wild areas bird counts are done on a regular basis by groups devoting a Sunday to the task. Has a group ever done the same for mollusks? Might be a nice task for some club getting bored with their usual programs.
     Art
>
> From: worldwide <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: 2004/01/22 Thu AM 02:01:17 EST
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Liberty spikes
>
> Yes Riccardo, the seven oceans of the world represents the over-arching
> symbolism of the crown, but Bertholdi also had secondary and tertiary
> significance in the seven spikes.  Scattered in documents chronicling
> Bertholdi's life are passages eluding to multiple meanings for Lady
> Liberty's seven-spiked crown:
>
> Frederic Auguste Bertholdi incorporated numerous symbols into his statue.
> The crown Liberty is wearing has seven spikes and twenty-five windows. The
> spikes represent the seven major seas and seven major continents. The
> windows represent the total number of seas (major and minor) and continents
> in the world. The spikes also represent Heaven's Rays shining over the world.
>
> This information came from research compiled during the development of a
> short historical documentary dealing with monuments in and around New York
> City, a project that I collaborated on some time ago.  Interestingly, a few
> historians believe that the secondary and tertiary symbolism credited to
> Bertholdi may have actually been conceived by immigrants arriving at Ellis
> Island in New York Harbor.  Many of them envisaged their own symbolism in
> the statue and some of these symbols may have become attributed to
> Bertholdi.  [Or maybe this is the stuff that urban legends are made of?]  I
> had three relatives pass through Ellis Island between 1910 and 1918.  I
> vividly remember them talking about how overwhelmingly emotional they were
> when they first saw the statue after sailing across the Atlantic in squalor
> conditions.
>
> I visited Liberty Island last Spring with my daughters and we had an
> opportunity to look around the grounds.  We found no less than three
> species of micro land mollusks on the island (Zonitoides arboreus, Vallonia
> pulchella, and a Punctum sp.).  These snails seem to survive the brackish
> water spray from the Harbor.  There was not enough time to investigate the
> extent of the populations.
>
> No marine mollusks were visible on the pier pilings or sea walls.  With as
> much environmental clean up as NY Harbor has undergone in the past 30
> years, I'm told a significant amount of pollutants still leach into the
> water even today.  Yet not more than fifteen miles upstream in the Hudson
> River, molluscan species are more easily found.
>
> Rich
>
>
> At 03:26 PM 1/21/2004, you wrote:
> >According
> >
> >http://www.endex.com/gf/buildings/liberty/libertyfacts.htm
> >
> >
> >Number of spikes in the crown:
> >Seven rays of the diadem  (7 oceans of the World)
> >
> >all the best
> >
> >
> >Riccardo Giannuzzi-Savelli
>
>

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