CHAPTER XI 



CORAL REEFS 



" There is a great quantity of a kind of white coral on the shore, 

 between Galle and Matura and many other coasts in the Indies. . . . 

 There are large banks of this coral ; it is porous, neither so firm or 

 smooth as the upright which grows in small branches ; and when 

 they are come to the full growth, there grow others between them 

 and then upon these grow others till it is become like a rock for 

 thickness." — Mr. Strachan, Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. vol. xxiii., 1702, 

 abridged edition, p. 711. 



It is not surprising that the coral reefs of the tropical seas 

 have arrested the attention and excited the interest of 

 navigators and travellers of every generation. The white 

 rollers breaking on the barrier of corals and the calm, pale 

 blue water of the lagoon were emblems both of danger and 

 of safety to the earlier navigators ; the abundance and 

 variety of animal and vegetable life which the naturahst 

 saw through the clear water as he passed over the shoals 

 in his boat promised surpassing richness for his collections ; 

 and the brilliancy of the colours of the coral polyps and of 

 the varied fauna and flora associated with them was an 

 ever-recurring delight to any one endowed with a sense of 

 beauty in Nature. 



But that is not all ; for, as the facts became known, 

 many questions arose in the minds of the philosophers as 

 to the origin of these reefs and the meaning of their many 

 physical peculiarities ; and it soon became clear that the 

 answers to these questions could only be given by the 

 solution of problems of absorbing interest but of extreme 

 perplexity and difficulty. 



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