SOME AXIMAL ARCHITECTS. 153 



active coral-formation exist as regions destitute of active 

 volcanoes, and in some instances as areas possessing no 

 volcanoes at all. " The regions occupied by fringing reefs 

 may be said to be those in which volcanic matter every now 

 and then bursts forth," and tends to elevation. The areas 

 of barrier reefs and atolls are "wide spaces sinking without 

 any volcanic outbursts ; and we may," concludes Mr. 

 Darwin, " feel sure that the movement has been so slow as 

 to have allowed the corals to grow up to the surface, and so 

 widely extended as to have buried over the broad face of the 

 ocean every one of these mountains, above which the atolls 

 now stand like monuments marking the place of their burial." 



These ideas are strongly supported by the observations 

 made on raised coral-reefs. That sinking must take place 

 in the course of the formation of reefs is proved by the 

 examination of some raised coral-rocks, " as at the island of 

 Mangaia in the Hervey Group," where the elevated reef 

 rises 300 feet above the sea-level. These rocks must have 

 been formed in water ; and as we know the limit of coral 

 life to have been 150 feet, it follows that such elevated reefs 

 could not have been made "without a sinking of many 

 scores of feet during their progress." Another explorer tells 

 us that he can vouch for the existence of raised coral-reefs 

 at Timor and Java, these coral-rocks existing at heights 

 varying from 100 to 200 feet above the level of the sea. 



The subject of coral and coral-reefs, like most other 

 studies in natural science, becomes related in an intimate 

 manner to other branches of knowledge, and to other trains 

 of thought. In the case before us, it may prove interesting 

 if, by way of conclusion, we endeavour to point out one of 

 the many subsidiary subjects on which a study like the pre- 

 sent is adapted to throw some degree of light. The most 

 sublime idea of nature which man can well obtain is that of 

 the uniformity and constant character of natural operations 

 and laws. To the student of nature, the idea of capricious- 

 ness exists only as the result of an erroneous interpretation 

 of some violated course of law and order; and in the 



