“The sound emanating from seashells into your ear is phonescence. Phonescence is to sound what phosphorescence is to light. Or, to employ terminology more easily within your range, the shells are phonographs of a sort, which have registered the mysterious songs of fish and rendered it sensible to your eardrum, in the same way that a phosphorescent plate shines in the dark with light captured during the day.”

Alphonse Allais, 1904