CORAL 



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CORBEL 



inched to each other. So the process of home- 

 building goes on and on until many shapes 

 are formed, the solid skeleton remaining even 

 when the animals which made them are dead. 

 And so billions and billions of families of 

 coral animals build formations as beautiful, 

 substantial and in some respects as remark- 

 able as man-made cities. 



Coral Formations. There are two general 

 classes of coral formations those of fanciful 

 shapes in white, yellow, pink, red or black, 

 forming some of the most beautiful sea gar- 

 dens, and the coral reefs, which are amazing 

 pieces of animal-architecture. Under the for- 

 mer may be grouped the sea fan, the madre- 

 pore, or tree coral, the mushroom, the organ 

 pipe, the brain coral and various flower shapes. 



Coral Reefs. In the surging waters of the 

 ocean where man with his skill and ingenuity 

 has found it difficult, sometimes impossible, 

 to build, this tiny jelly-mass, the polyp, has 

 built permanent wall-like structures. There 

 are three classes, formed chiefly by the antho- 

 zoan polyp, occurring for the most part in the 

 tropical regions of the Pacific and the Indian 

 oceans; the fringing reef, the barrier reef .and 

 the atoll. A fringing reef is a broad bank or 

 platform of coral rock lying near the shore 

 of an island or a continent. There are fring- 

 ing reefs along the coast of Florida and of the 

 West Indies. 



A barrier reef is a large fringing reef, some- 

 times of vast extent. -The great Australian 

 barrier reef is 1,250 miles long (see BARRIER 

 REEF). But openings usually occur in barrier 

 reefs, caused by the action of fresh sea-water 

 streams on the lime of the coral rock. The 

 outer wall usually rises from great depths but 

 never reaches the surface because the little 

 marine builders cannot live above or at the 

 surface of sea water. Sometimes lovely trop- 

 ical islands are found on coral barrier founda- 

 tions. The atoll is a ring-shaped barrier 

 within which is a shallow lake. Atolls were 

 probably at one time fringing reefs about an 

 island which later disappeared and remained 

 submerged, while on the reef the little build- 

 ers continued their work. See ATOLL. 



Precious Coral. Though all coral formations 

 are curious and interesting, only one, the pre- 

 cious coral, is of economic value. This is usu- 

 ally the madrepore, or tree coral, which forms 

 in the shallow waters on both sides of the 

 Mediterranean Sea and around its islands. It 

 is either pink or red, is used for jewelry and 

 personal adornment, and is sold chiefly in 



India. The best quality is very valuable, be- 

 ing worth from $400 to $700 an ounce. The 

 ordinary red coral commands $10 an ounce, 

 while the broken red coral for necklaces is 

 worth $1 an ounce. Black coral was oflce 

 abundant in the Persian Gulf, but is now found 

 chiefly along the Australian Barrier Reef. 

 Fishing companies are organized to dredge for 

 corals. Large boats often collect as much as 

 650 to 850 pounds in a season; the smaller 

 ones, 390 to 500 pounds. 



Although no coral reefs are found on the 

 American coasts north of Florida, coral is found 

 in shallow waters as far north as New England, 

 but the coral animal will not live in a tem- 

 perature lower than 68 F. In ancient and 

 medieval times considerable superstition at- 

 tached to coral, and medicinal properties were 

 assigned to it. Even now it is worn in Italy 

 as a charm against the "evil eye." M.S. 



Consult Dana's Corals and Coral Islands; 

 Agassiz's Visit to the Great Barrier Reef of Aus- 

 tralia. 



CORAL SEA, so named on account of the 

 great number of coral reefs it contains, is that 

 part of the Pacific Ocean which lies between 

 the northeast coast of Australia, the Solomon 

 Islands and the New Hebrides. Some of the 

 most remarkable coral formations in the world 

 are found in this sea. The boundaries are in- 

 definite, and the name might well be applied 

 to nearly all parts of the Southern Pacific 

 Ocean. See CORAL. 



CORBEL, kawr'bel, a form of architectural 

 support, first widely used in the Middle Ages. 

 It is a piece of stone, wood or iron projecting 



CORBELS 



from the vertical face of a wall of a building, 

 to support floor beams, projecting moldings 

 of doors and windows or other similar parts of 

 the structure. There are varieties of forms 

 of corbels, and they are ornamented in many 

 ways; in Scott's Lady of the Lake is the sen- 

 tence, "The corbels were carved grotesque and 



