8 



At tlie beginning of an extremely interesting 

 lecture, Mr. Morgan said it wasj somewhat of a 

 disappointment for a man of modest nature and of 

 moderate capacities and capabilities to be 

 heralded by a great flourish of truLopets, and yet 

 that misfortune had befallen him in Canteibury. 

 He had been announced as a Fellow of the 

 Geological Society, and as a great expert and 

 authority on corals. Now, he was neither. 

 Although he was neither a member of the 

 Geological Society or a great authority on corals, 

 he possessed what wa^^ the finest collection of corals 

 in England outside the British Museum. One of 

 his greatest friends was a gentleman who was 

 employed by the Trustees of the British Museum 

 at South Kensington to catalogue and name all 

 the corals iu that collection. He had been at it 

 for five years, and probably would be for another 

 fifteen years if he should live (laughter). A double 

 diflBculty beset a person addressing an audience 

 to whom he was a stranger, and to whom the 

 subject was a new one. The first was where to 

 begin, and the second how far to go. The nature 

 of corals was treated of in all our b^pst cycloptedias, 

 but there did not exist an English text-book 

 of this department of zoology. Hence ho had 

 ceased to wonder when persons, not only well- 

 educated but competent as teachers in other 

 bratcbes of tcience, bad faid, " Vou may tell me 

 what you please about corals, for I know nothing 

 about them." He proposed to address them 

 on that basis that evening, and if there 

 were any present who had studied the 

 subject he asked their consideration, and 

 forbearance for the sake of their less accom- 

 plished neighbours. There were two forms 

 of coral with which most persons were familiar, 

 the white branching coral, the ornament of many 

 a room, and the red ccral in the shape of beads 

 for necklaces or for infants when teething. But 

 the forms of coral were endless. The two men- 

 tioned above were composed mainly of carbonate 

 of lime ; but therp were polyps that secreted albu- 

 men instead of cairbonate of lime, consolidating it 

 into a hard, bony substance, sometimes of con- 

 siderable thickness, or at others drawn out into 

 thin wiry threads. One family ot corals combined 

 the two — codes of carbonate of lime, alternating 

 with others of albumen. How where these sub- 

 stances produced Y When asked what is coral, 

 many persons answered, "a substance made by 

 insects under the sea." It was true that coral was 

 produced under the sea. but the producers were 

 not insects, nor could they be said to make it, 

 except in the same sense as we were said to make 

 our bones — there was no operation like that ot the 

 bee who worked up the wax to form her honey- 

 comb. They must therefore begin their study of 

 corals by unlearning what so many poets and popu- 

 lar writers had so long taught them. The creatures 

 which produced coral were termed variously 

 TX)lyps, zoophytes, and actinariie. Polyps because 

 they had irany feet or fingers; zoophytes or 

 animal plants because early investigators could 

 not say whether they were animals or plants, and 

 so gave them the double name; and actinaria? 

 because their tentacles stood out like rays from an 

 orb. The common sea anemone was a zoophyte or 

 polyp ; but it did not deposit coral. It adhered 



to rocks and stones, and its short fleshy tube 

 was open at the top, in the centre of which 

 was the mouth, and around this were the 

 tentacles. Anemones had the power of loco- 

 motion, although slow and limited, so they were 

 not plants rooted to the soil. The lecturer then 

 described the structure of the anemones by means 

 of diagrams and views thrown on the screen. 

 Turning to the coral-making polyps the lecturer 

 remarked that they were of the same essettial 

 structure, but differed in that they had power to 

 extract lime from the water of the ocean, and to 

 deposit it as carbonate of lime in the form of coral. 

 Passing to a very large and important family of 

 corals — the madrepores — white branching, or 

 bushy corals, the lecturer said that although they 

 were nearly always exhibited white, the whiteness 

 was artificial. These corals were really the 

 bleached skeletons of the polyps. In nature in the 

 sea, they were of many and beautiful colours, and 

 when taken out of the water, some portion of 

 their colours was retained, but it was impossible 

 to keep more than a small part of their brilliancy. 

 Externally every part of the coral was studded 

 with tiny polyps, each with twelve or more 

 tentacles, and these generally moved about to 

 collect food, which was drawn down by the 

 mouth into the stomachs, which were connected 

 by tubes or vessels, so that any nutrimeut gained 

 by one in super-abundance might be passed on to 

 otheis. The polyps were propagated ia a compli- 

 cated manner. They started from an ogg, which, 

 when it had passed through cer'ain stages, 

 changed its shape and became elongated into a 

 tube, and settled down on some rock or piet e ' f o'd 

 coral. Fastening itself by one end, it opened the 

 other, and developed a mouth and tentacles. At 

 the bottom, where the tube was attached to the 

 rock, it began to deposit carbonate of lime, first in 

 a simple ring, then the ring grew into a plate, and 

 a number ot ridges appeared, and soon. Tnere were 

 two methods by Tvhich the polyps multiplied, (1) 

 by budding, and (2) by fissiparation.or separating 

 one from another. As instancing the rapidity of 

 the growth of coral, Mr. Morgan spoke of a wreck 

 to which, after a lapse of 60 years.divers descended, 

 and found branching coral growing on the deck to 

 a height of IB feet. The lecturer then described 

 at length the formation of coral found on the Great 

 Barrier Reef, which extends fur hundreds of miles 

 along the coast of Australia, showing many 

 beautiful photographs beaiing on thft subject. 

 In conclusion, Mr. Morgan submitted that the 

 study of corals was seviceable both directly and 

 indirectly. First, they weie a grtat maritime 

 nation, and the zoologist who could tell the manner 

 and rate of growth of corals would render material 

 assistance to navigatois, and (2) they vsere leaning 

 more and more to value art. For, from the first 

 dawn of art man had turned to nature as the 

 inspirer of ornf.mental design, which was indis- 

 pensible in civilised life. The exquisite and bound- 

 less variety of patterns revealed in corals opened 

 a new field for imitation in the production of 

 patterns for practical purposes. If his argument 

 as to any direct benefit failed, he did not hesitate 

 toaaythatlhe study was indirectly valuable as 

 ministry to their higher nature, both by the won- 

 der it produced in the mind and by the delight 



