UNCLE IN ENGLAND. Gl 



2 ( 3th. There was a long conversation to-day on 

 corals, corallines, and particularly on the forma- 

 tion of islands of that substance, which seems to 

 take place so rapidly in some parts of the world. 



Mr. Salt, the traveller, says that the islands in 

 the Bay of Amphila are composed entirely of 

 marine remains, strongly cemented together, and 

 now forming solid masses ; the surface of which 

 is covered by only a thin layer of soil. These 

 marine remains are chiefly corallines, madre- 

 pores, and a great variety of sea-shells, of 

 species still existing in the Red Sea. Some of 

 the islands are thirty feet above high-watermark; 

 a circumstance which, he says, makes it difficult 

 to account for the process of their formation. 

 When a pillar of coral rises to the surface of 

 the sea, birds, of course, resort to it ; the decay 

 of fish-bones, and other remains of their food 

 in time produces a soil, which is followed by 

 vegetation, and then it quickly assumes the 

 appearance of a little island, covered with a 

 solid stratum of earth. But in the present case, 

 large pieces of madrepore are found, disposed in 

 regular layers, far above the sea; and for this 

 no satisfactory reason can be assigned, he says, 

 except that the sea must have retired since they 

 were so deposited ; for this tribe of animals can- 

 not work in the air. 



There is nothing more curious, my uncle 

 observed, than the changes produced on the face 



