In yesterday's Lycos 50, we discussed a couple of books that are getting significant searches on Lycos right now. One is the next Harry Potter book, Order of the Phoenix, which hits stores June 21. Another is the new autobiography by Senator Hillary Clinton, entitled Living History.

But there is a third book getting significant searches right now, and this one is a bit of a surprise. The author is Alan Cutler, and the book is called The Seashell on the Mountaintop.

We don't normally receive a lot of searches for books unless they feature young English wizards. We really don't normally receive a lot of searches for biographies of 17th century Danish scientists. But this book is getting a lot of attention, and could be the next scientific book, written for the general public, that captures the nation's imagination.

Back in the 17th century, scientists who still held to the history of the world detailed in the Bible couldn't figure square their beliefs with the facts of geology. How did a seashell end up inside a rock? And how could that rock get to the top of a mountain?

Niels Stensen, a.k.a. Nicolaus Steno, was actually an anatomy scholar in the court of the Medicis in Florence, but he shifted interests from man to earth and tackled these questions. He theorized that the seashell was evidence that the planet was far older than the 6,000 years people accepted at the time. Instead, according to Steno's idea of "deep time," the earth was billions of years old.

As you can imagine, this idea inflamed the religious authorities of the time, spurring a revolution that defined our intellectual history. The odd end to the tale is that Steno was an extremely religious man himself, and left science to enter the priesthood.

We have to admit that the searches for Seashell have us scratching our heads. The searches are recent, although the book has been out for two months, and despite the online interest, the book isn't even in the top 35 books on the New York Times bestseller list for non-fiction. (note: NYT links require registration)

Is this a momentary blip? Or is The Seashell on the Mountaintop developing a cult following that will soon spread to the general population? Time will tell. Not as much time as it takes to develop rocks, though.

If you are interested, you can purchase The Seashell on the Mountaintop through Lycos Shopping.

TOMORROW: The slammin' hit of the summer of 2003 that will fill car stereos nationwide.