100 BELIEVED TO BE FLOWERS. 



Such are the grand and mysterious operations of Provi- 

 dence in the depths of the ocean! We will now attempt to 

 describe the singular animals to whom the accomplishment 

 of these marvels is due, but must first mention that coral was 

 formerly supposed to be a marine plant. This ancient no- 

 tion rested not merely on its shrub -like form, but from the 

 circumstance that its branches are covered with a soft coat- 

 ing while in the water, but which dries up immediately on 

 its extraction. An Italian naturalist perceived small objects 

 in the coral-cells, which he thought were flowers; but at 

 length a French physician at Marseilles discovered that 

 there was life in the coral, and that these assumed flowers 

 were in reality minute animals. Thus, by the aid of the 

 microscope, an object which might be said to belong to 

 mineralogy, and by its trunk and branches to botany, was 

 now admitted to a rank in the animal world. This discovery, 

 the result of thirty years' studious research into the nature 

 of coral, was laughed at by many persons at the time and 

 treated as absurd, but LinnaBus, the great Swedish naturalist, 

 saw the truth at once, and did not hesitate to place coral at 

 the head of the zoophytes, or animal plants, an appropriate 

 designation, because it indicates at the same time the double 

 nature of the substances. 



A common characteristic of these animals is that their 

 mouths are surrounded by radiating tentacles or feelers, ap- 

 pendages by which they attach themselves to surrounding 

 objects, arranged somewhat like the rays of a flower. By 

 this will be understood the term pohjpij by which these ani- 

 mals are also known, signifying " many" and " foot." Of 

 these the individuals of a few families are separate and per- 

 fect in themselves, but the greater number of zoophytes are 

 compound beings, or each zoophyte consists of an indefinite 

 number of individuals, or polyps, connected together. 



This polyp is an extraordinary creature, and has a tenac- 

 ity of life truly remarkable. If one cut off* the branch of a 



