LIFE OF JAMES DWIGHT DANA 



tentacles, and separate stomachs ; but beyond this, there 

 is no individual property. It is a harmonious phalanstery. 

 Each eats for its own pleasure, it is true, but at the same 

 time for the general good. In fact, the zoophyte is like 

 a living sheet of animal matter, fed and nourished by 

 numerous mouths and as many stomachs. 



" The coral is a secretion of lime (carbonate of lime) 

 made within the animals, among the tissues; and in the 

 living zoophyte these secretions are concealed, as much 

 so as our bones, to which they are in fact analogous. 

 Each star on the surface of a coral corresponds to a single 

 polyp, and the star itself is a consequence of a radiated 

 arrangement of fleshy partitions within the polyp. 



" Unlike the hive of the bee or the hillock of the ant, 

 there is no work done in the coral phalanstery. The 

 polyps live without locomotion; they eat such chance 

 game as is thrown in their way; and the coral grows 

 within them by natural secretion. They are no more 

 laborers than any animal is so in making its bones. 



" Zoophytes care so little for a fracture or a wound 

 that a broken branch dropping in a favorable place 

 will grow into a new coral plant, its base becoming 

 cemented to the rock on which it may rest. Coral plan- 

 tations may be levelled by the waves ; yet, like the trod- 

 den sod, if left quiet for a while, they sprout again and 

 continue to flourish as before. The sod has roots, which 

 remain unhurt ; but the living coral has a source or centre 

 of life in every polyp that blossoms over its surface. 

 Each, if separated, might be the germ of a new zoo- 

 phyte. 



" I have thus far alluded to the features of a coral 

 island and the growth of the coral plantations beneath 

 the sea. By what process, now, is the coral island 

 formed ? 



' The history is simply this : Suppose a reef at low-tide 

 level. The corals are growing in scattered clumps or in 

 occasional thickets over the shallow bottom. The heavy 

 waves, especially when storms are raging, tear up the 

 corals and dash them over one another; sometimes they 

 lift large masses from their bed, which moving along 

 break down whatever may be in their way. The frag- 

 ments, or many of them, by constant trituration under 

 the untiring sea, are reduced to sand or pebbles; the 



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