CHAPTER III 



MADREPORARIAN CORALS 



" Doch de Natiuir is in 't Element des waters zoo verwart, dat 

 men dingen vind, die men qualyk tot een van deze trappen brengen 

 kan, als of'er overblyfzels van den eersten Chaos in gebleven waren ; 

 want hier loopen levende, groeijende en minerale dingen alle onder 

 malkander, maakende planten die leaven, starren die groeijen, en 

 dieren die de planten nabootzen." — Rumphius, Rariteitkamer , 

 Book I. chap, xxxvii., 1705. 



When the Dutch naturahst Rumphius, at the end of the 

 seventeenth century, varied his remarkable investigations 

 on the plants of the Malay Archipelago by a study of the 

 corals at Amboyna and found it was difficult to determine 

 to what order of things they belonged, he exclaimed that in 

 the element of water there remains a survival of primordial 

 chaos. 



To the naturalist of the present day, when he undertakes 

 the task of bringing into some kind of system the huge 

 numbers and variable forms of the Madreporarian corals 

 and the literature that deals with them, it may seem also 

 that here is the presence of a chaos which, if not primordial, 

 is at least as difhcult to unravel. 



The Madreporaria are sometimes called the " Stony " 

 corals, but this popular name does not in the least help us 

 to distinguish a Madreporarian from any other kind of coral. 

 It is true that the driad corallum is hard and inflexible like 

 a stone and that, with a few rare exceptions, it is white, 

 but the same may be said of Millepora and many other corals 

 which are not Madreporaria. The only character that dis- 

 tinguishes them from other corals is the calyx (the calcareous 



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