tipplicalle to the Theory of tM Earth. 163 



the archipelago of the Low Friendly Isles, Bougainville's 

 Island, several points of New Guinea, all the islands scat- 

 tered on the eastern side of New Holland, and in particular 

 the formidable labyrinth vvhich had like to have proved so 

 fatal to the vessels of Bougainville and captain Cook ; in 

 a word, almost all those innumerable islands dispersed 

 throughout llie great t^quinoctial ocean. Seem some of 

 them entirely, and others only in part, to be the work of 

 these feeble animals. The accounts of all the navigators 

 who have traversed these seas are filled with expressions of 

 the terror inspired by their labours. All oi' them, almost, 

 were exposed to the greatest dangers m the midst of the 

 reefs which they raise up from the bottom of the ocean to 

 its surface, and no doubt the unfortunate navigator, the 

 loss of whom France as well as all Europe deplores, was 



one of their numerous victims 



" The danger they present," says M. Labillardiere with 

 great reason, " is^the more to be apprehended as they form 

 rugged rucks covered bv the waves, and which carmot be 

 perceived but at very short distances. If a calm comes on, 

 and the ship is driven towards them by a current, her loss is 

 almost inevitable : in vain would the crew attempt to save 

 her by droppuig their anchorj it would not reach the bottom 

 even quite close to these walls of coral, which rise in a^ 

 perpendicular direction from the bottom of the waters. 

 Tiiesc polypiers, the continual increase of which obstructs 

 more and more the bason of the seas, are capable of 

 frightening navigators ; and many shallows, vvhich at pre- 

 sent afford a passage, will soon form shoals exceedingly 

 dangerous." 



Though less conmion in the seas which we traversed, 

 f)ieso animal-; furnished me nevertheless with subject of 

 observations the more valuable, as the general consequences 

 deduced from ihem may be applied with more interest and 

 more evidence to the history of the revolutions of our 

 ])lanet. 



Thus, as I have said, from the 44th to the 34th degree 

 «outh, no large species of solid zoophytes are found. It is 

 at Fort King George, in Nuyts Land, that these animals 

 appear, i'or the first time, with those grand charactcrri which 

 they affect in the midst of the equinoctial regions. My 

 particular observations, indeed, are reduced in this point to 

 mere fragments, found here and there in the interior parts 

 (;f ihc earth. The case is not the same with those of Main- 

 ZKs and Vancouver. The details, for which we are indebted 

 to ihcs'.- uavigators, arc too valuable of themselves, and par* 

 L ? ticularly 



