GREAT SEAWEEDS. 33 



requires those who have themselves seen the great 

 rollers of the Pacific bursting in thunder upon a rock- 

 bound coast, to realize what this wonderful seaweed 

 is capable of performing, when it is thus able to turn 

 the angry surge of an ocean never at rest, and which 

 is perpetually beating with terrific force upon these 

 storm-beaten coasts, into a peaceful calm. 



But we might multiply almost to infinity the wonders 

 of the mighty deep. 



Take for instance the case of the coral reefs, built 

 up by zoophites that is to say by a species of minute 

 and delicate sea anemone, both in form and colouring 

 closely resembling the flower of the garden aster, * 

 working from age to age beneath the breakers of the 

 Coral Sea. There are, as is well known, 



" enormous areas in the Pacific and in the Indian Ocean, in 

 which every single island is of coral formation." "The 

 reefs often rising with extreme abruptness out of the profound 

 depths of the ocean." f "The soundings on their seaward 

 margin indicating depths of from 100 to more than ICKK) 

 fathoms, not far from the actual edge of the reef." 



And these wonderful structures in many cases extend 

 for hundreds of miles. Thus " the Barrier Reef which 

 encircles New Caledonia is 400 miles long, " and " the 

 group of ' Atolls ' known as the ' Low Archipelago ' " 

 (in the Mid-Pacific Ocean) " encloses an area of about 

 840 by 420 geographical miles." ** 



Inside these reefs is generally a deep channel of 

 calm water (usually averaging from ten to twenty 



Coral Reefs and Islands, by Professor James D. Dana, 

 p. 48. 



7 A Natiiralis? s Vovage, etc., by Charles Darwin, p. 467. 

 EncycL Brit., gth edit., Vol. vi., p. 278 (Art. "Corals"). 

 c * A Naturalist's Voyage, etc., by Charles Darwin, p. 467. 



VOL. III. -\ 



