INTRODUCTION. 15 
a beautifully built city ; but where are its gay and active in- 
habitants? When in its native position in the deep, the 
numerous inhabitants appeared in bright array at the portals 
of their houses, like a happy assemblage of living flowers, 
not inferior in beauty to the flowers which adorn our gar- 
dens. Many of our sailors, who bring home to their 
friends beautiful fragments of coral, are not aware that they 
were once inhabited; for as they were collected when left 
uncovered by the tide, the inmates were unseen, having 
retreated into their moist cells till the waves should revisit 
them. A ship-master told me that on his first voyage to 
the South Seas, being delighted with the beautiful corals 
which aboundéd on the shore, he resolved to bring home 
presents to his friends in Scotland, and laid in a good sup- 
ply; but he had not been many days at sea when his col- 
lection became so unsavoury that he was glad to throw the 
whole into the deep. On a second voyage he profited by 
past experience, and having enclosed his corals in a net he 
plunged them into the sea, and fastening the net by a rope 
to the stern, he allowed it to be dragged in the wake of the 
vessel for several days. When hauled up at the end of this 
time, the corals were found to be sweet and pure. The 
little scavengers of the deep had entered the minutest cell, 
