ANIMAL-PLANTS AND PLANT-ANIMALS. 685 



accepted that Reaumur, in the Academy of Sciences, did not disclose 

 the name of Peysonnell, a physician of Marseilles, who first declared 

 them to be animals, for fear of his being ridiculed. For what Aris- 

 totle, the founder of the descriptive natural sciences, had written 

 more than two thousand years ago, had passed into oblivion. 



And how much greater is the resemblance which is borne to plants 

 by those little animals that build the immense coral reefs ; which turn 

 again into rock that which the solvent power of the waters had at 

 one time extracted from the cliffs ! Very early in the history of the 

 world, these little builders entered into the thoughts of man. Mythol- 

 ogy attributed their origin to plants, which were said to have been 

 thus transformed, as is related in the following legend : When Per- 

 seus had released the beautiful Andromeda from the terrible monster, 

 he placed the head of the Medusa, whose frightful aspect turned to 

 stone everything that beheld it, on some plants which he had taken 

 from the ocean. But lo ! these plants were immediately turned to 

 stone. The water-nymphs soon came to satisfy their curiosity, and to 

 marvel at the wonder. Playfully they scattered the seeds of these 

 stone-plants into the ocean, and behold, the corals were created ! 



Not unfrequently hidden coral reefs prove a source of great dan- 

 ger to navigation. Two hundred and fifty years ago only thirty coral 

 islands had been located in the strait between New Holland and New 

 Guinea ; now they number over one hundred and fifty, and soon, per- 

 haps, this channel will become impassable. But is it not probable that 

 other forces, besides the growth of the corals, are here actively at 

 work ? One of the most changeable parts of the globe is the neigh- 

 borhood of that wonderful island, Australia. Numerous are the islets 

 which there slowly arise from beneath the waters ; numerous those 

 which gradually disappear. Darwin was the first to show how sure 

 a proof of geological changes such coral reefs are. The polyps which 

 build them die at a depth of thirty metres, and the contact with the 

 atmosphere is fatal to them. Hence, very deep coral structures 

 denote a sinking, those above the water, on the contrary, an upheaval 

 of the earth's crust. 



And as the Jura, a part of the Alps and the Carpathian Mountains, 

 display marks of such animal structures, it is a proof that all those 

 mountain-ranges have, in the past ages, arisen from the ocean. They 

 must have risen from a warm ocean, warmer than the climate of those 

 regions is to-day, for the tropics only are the home of the reef -building 

 coral-polyps. And how enormously they multiply under favorable 

 circumstances is shown by the barrier-reef, four hundred miles in 

 length, near the northern shore of Australia. Between it and the 

 mainland there is a channel, over six miles in width, the water of 

 which is calm, and always affords to vessels a refuge from the wildest 

 storms. 



And when we turn our gaze on the fauna existing between the 



