494 ANNUAL REGISTER, ISl?. 



On thr Coral Fishery in the 



Sicilian Seas. 



By Alfio Ferrara, M. D> 

 (From the same.) 



Having for a long time em- 

 ployed myself in the study of the 

 various natural productions, with 

 which the sea that bathes the Sici- 

 lian shores abounds, the coral was 

 the first ol>jecl to attract my no- 

 tire. This beautiful and elegant 

 ornament of the sea could not fail 

 of deserving tiist to come under 

 my examination. I have been fre- 

 quently present at the fishing of 

 it, near the coast of Sicily : I have 

 contemplated it in the very bottom 

 of the sea, on its native spot : I 

 have gathered it from stones, and 

 shells, and other marine substances, 

 recently taken out of the sea: I 

 have had it worked in my presence : 

 I have analysed the several varie- 

 ties of it : in fine, I have extend- 

 ed my researches to whatever 

 would give me the least insight 

 into the nature of this substance, 

 comparing the results of my own 

 observations with every thing the 

 ancients and moderns have written 

 on the subject, and consultina; in 

 every point the treasures of natu- 

 ral history, with which the present 

 day has been so abundantly en- 

 riched by the accurate experiments 

 and luminous theories of the many 

 great men of the last century. 



1 have endeavoured in the pre- 

 sent memoir to establish a clear 

 and precise notion of the origin, 

 increase, and nature of coral. This 

 Work has been the more pleasing 

 to me, as I flatter myself 1 have 

 been able not only to confirm, by 

 my own observations, what has 

 been already written on the subject 

 by former Philosophers and Na- 



turalists, but to add Bome new 

 facts, that may tend to elucidate 

 the history of this marine produc- 

 tion, which has at all times as 

 much occupied the researches of 

 naturalists, as it has engaged the 

 admiration of the fair sex, with 

 whom the beauty of its colour, 

 and brilliancy of its texture, have 

 rendered it a favourite ornament 

 of dress. 



The ancients, attending only to 

 its external form, conceived coral 

 to be a plant ; to which from its 

 ramifications it bears some resem- 

 blance, and named it lithodendron, 

 or stony plant, on aciount of its 

 hardness. It was so called by Di- 

 oscorides and Pliny. These authors 

 and their contemporaries did not 

 attempt to contradict by the most 

 trifling examination, what the poet 

 Ovid (his head full of transforma- 

 tions) had asserted : that unrier 

 the water it was a soft plant, but, 

 immediately on being taken from 

 the sea, became hard. This opi- 

 nion prevailed for a long time, and 

 was encouraged in later times by 

 many great naturalists. Of this 

 number was the celebrated Cesal- 

 pino. 



Our JBaccone, who took much 

 pains to investigate the nature of 

 coral, could not divest himself of 

 this idea ; but, gifted as he wa^ 

 with great sagacity and penetra- 

 tion, not being convinced, either 

 from his own observations or those 

 of others, that coral was a mere 

 plant, and still less that it was 

 a stone, he imagined, that the 

 milky juice, which drops from the 

 pores of fresh coral, was its seed; 

 which, being dispersed in the sea, 

 is precipitated and ^•radnally accu- 

 mulated in a regular form in the 

 capsules nature provides for it. 



This 



