24 HISTORY OF BRITISH ZOOPHYTES. 
been raised to the surface, the polypes could raise it no 
higher, for all their materials were found in the waters, and 
they could not live out of the sea. The sea, for a time, 
would roll over it, but when it reached the surface, sea- 
weeds and branches of trees, and fragments of wrecked 
vessels, and many other things floating in the deep, would 
be entangled among the branching corals, and as they 
became decomposed, soil would thereby be formed. The 
reef, mm general, is observed to be the highest to the wind- 
ward, for though the hurricane might break off large frag- 
ments they would often be heaped upon the reef; and under 
water the polypes would soon repair the damage. Coral- 
sand and shells broken by the storm would often be tossed 
up and deposited on the reef. Penguins and other guano 
birds would find it a resting-place, and would enrich it by 
their droppings before it was a safe place for their nests. 
The sea would bring the seeds of various plants ; cocoa-nuts 
from adjoining islands would often be wafted by the waves, 
and, as soon as any soil was formed, would vegetate and spring 
up. Flowers, in course of time, would be intermingled, 
and, ere long, the reef would become a beautiful garden, 
abounding in all the shrubs, and trees, and flowers, and fruits, 
which grow in such beauty and luxuriance in southern climes 
