102 NATURE OF CORAL. 



perienced builder would pronounce faultless. How this is 

 effected, and what peculiar instincts the little toilers of the 

 ocean possess that enable them to construct their dwellings 

 with s'lch mathematical nicety, are among those mysteries 

 of Nature we cannot comprehend ; but it is certain that 

 large masses of solid rock are framed by these animals, ever 

 working to the music of the waves. ''Verily,'' observes 

 Baker, " for my own part, the more I look into Nature's 

 works, the sooner I am inclined to believe of her, even those 

 things that seem incredible." But here we have the certainty 

 of Natures operations : we know that islands and continents 

 are constructed for the habitation of man by these minute 

 animals ; that mountains like the Appenines, and regions to 

 which our own country is but trifling in comparison, are the 

 results of their toil. South-west of Malabar, there is a chain 

 of reefs and islets of coral extending four hundred and 

 eighty geographical miles ; on the east side of New Holland 

 are unbroken reefs of three hundred and fifty miles long ; 

 and between that and New Guinea, a coral formation of 

 seven hundred miles in length. 



The process by which these great changes are effected is 

 still going on extensively in the Pacific and Indian Seas, 

 where multitudes of coral islands emerge from the waves, 

 and shoals and reefs, where the rock builders are ever busy, 

 appear at small depths beneath the water. 



How truly wonderful it is to know that the Polynesian 

 Archipelago, now one of the great divisions of the globe, 

 has its foundations formed of coral reefs, the spontaneous 

 growth of once living animals! As one generation of the 

 coral-builders dies and leaves its chalky remains, another 

 succeeds, until the mass of coral appears above the ocean, 

 when the formation ceases, for it is only in that element the 

 laborers can live. 



"Ye build ! ye build 1 but ye enter not in, 



Like the tribes whom the desert devoured in their sin ; 



