INTRODUCTION. 15 



a beautifully built city ; but where are its gay and active in- 

 habitants? When in its native position in the deep, the 

 numerous inhabitants appeared in bright array at the portals 

 of their houses, like a happy assemblage of living flowers, 

 not inferior in beauty to the flowers which adorn our gar- 

 dens. Many of our sailors, who bring home to their 

 friends beautiful fragments of coral, are not aware that they 

 were once inhabited; for as they were collected when left 

 uncovered by the tide, the inmates were unseen, having 

 retreated into their moist cells till the waves should revisit 

 them. A ship-master told me that on his first voyage to 

 the South Seas, being delighted with the beautiful corals 

 which abounded on the shore, he resolved to bring home 

 presents to his friends in Scotland, and laid in a good sup- 

 ply ; but he had not been many days at sea when his col- 

 lection became so unsavoury that he was glad to throw the 

 whole into the deep. On a second voyage he profited by 

 past experience, and having enclosed his corals in a net he 

 plunged them into the sea, and fastening the net by a rope 

 to the stern, he allowed it to be dragged in the wake of the 

 vessel for several days. When hauled up at the end of tliis 

 time, the corals were found to be sweet and pure. The 

 little scavengers of the deep had entered the minutest cell, 



