286 TRAVELS IX THE EAST IXDIAX ARCHIPELAGO. 



sui'faces are horizontal and theii' upper sides slightly 

 convex. When the soft parts are removed, a num- 

 ber of radiating partitions are seen, so that the 

 whole resembles a gigantic mushroom turned upside 

 down ; and this family of polyps is hence called 

 Fungidce. Scattered among the stone corals are 

 many Gorgonias. Some are much like broad sheets 

 of foliag-e and similar to those known to us as " sea- 

 fans," which generally come fi'om the tropical waters 

 among om* West Indies. Others resemble bundles 

 of rattans ; and, when the soft polyps are taken oif, 

 a black horn-like axis stick is left. Others, when 

 taken out of the sea and dried, look like limbs 

 cut from a small spruce-tree after it has been dried, 

 and lost hundreds of its small needle-like leaves. Num- 

 bers of sponges are also seen, mostly of a spherical 

 form, with many ramifying ducts or tubes. But the 

 most accurate description possible must fail to con- 

 vey any proper idea of the beauty and richness of 

 these gardens beneath the sea, because, in reading or 

 hearing a description, the various forms that are dis- 

 tinctly seen at a single glance have to be mentioned 

 one after another, and thus they pass along in a se- 

 ries or line before our mental vision, instead of being 

 grouped into cii'cular areas, where the charm consists 

 not so much in the wonderfal perfection of a few 

 separate parts, as in the harmonious relations, or, as 

 architects say, the effect of the whole. The pleasure 

 of viewing coral reefs never becomes wearisome, 

 because the grouping is always new. No two places 

 are just alike beneath all the wide sea, and no one 

 can fail to be thrilled with pleasure, when, after a 



