Well, I must admit, I did seed a beach with shells one time.  A few years
back, there was a church outing at a nearby state park on the ocean.  It was a
family affair, and I knew there would be a lot of small children there.  So I
brought about 10 pounds of commercial grade small shells, got there a bit
early, and scattered them over the rather muddy section of beach in front of
our reserved picnic site.  I didn't say a word to anyone.  The kids were there
for a couple of hours before they finally got down to the beach.  At that
point, it was great fun watching them.  For a few minutes they just ran
around, oblivious to the shells.  Then one child spotted one and showed it to
the others.  "Oh man, awesome!  That is sooo baaaad!"  Naturally, that set off
a mass search by all of them.  They couldn't have been more excited if it had
been Christmas morning - running all over the place, wanting to show each new
find to all the other kids, but not wanting to stop long enough to do it.  It
was also great fun watching their parents when the kids brought their finds
back up to the picnic area.  The child would say "Mommy, I found some sea
shells".  The parent would say "oh that's nice dear".  Then they would take a
closer look, their eyes would pop out of their heads, and they would say "you
found THOSE shells on the BEACH?!"  A number of them were aware of my
avocation however, so I became an immediate suspect, and eventually had to
confess.  I hope this doesn't cause confusion for some unsuspecting 80th
century paleontologist.
Paul M.
Rhode Island