COKAL EEEFS. 381 



the same surface and elevation of living coral appear to have 

 existed for ages unchanged. Ehrenberg found in the Ked 

 Sea vast globular masses of Meandrina, which, he says, are 

 of such antiquity that ' Pharaoh himself may have beheld 

 them ; ' and he gives evidence to show that various coral for- 

 mations of this sea have undergone little or no change within 

 the last two centuries. Captain Beechey furnishes similar 

 proofs from different parts of the Pacific. Resting upon 

 these and other instances, some naturalists have been led to 

 view the growth of corals as the slow work of ages rather 

 than of years, and to doubt the possibility of islands having 

 been thus formed in the midst of the ocean. 



Such difficulties may unquestionably be lessened, if not 

 removed, by a regard to the various conditions under which 

 coral masses are formed ; by the difference of the coral 

 animals themselves in species, size, and habitudes of exist- 

 ence ; by the succession of several species in the same 

 mass ; by the important fact (ascertained as far as negative 

 proofs will carry us) that new coral does not form on the 

 surface of that which is still living ; by the various founda- 

 tions on which the corals build their superstructure ; and 

 by the changes of level, sudden or slow, occurring in these 

 foundations. We incline, therefore, to Mr. Darwin's belief 

 that the formation of coral is still actively proceeding in 

 numerous places over the globe. We find no reason to doubt 

 that the atolls and reefs rising precipitously from the deep 

 ocean around, whatever of increment they may receive to 

 their growth from other sources, are mainly, as we see them, 

 the creation of successive generations and species of these 

 zoophytes. In the whole range of physical causes we find, 

 in truth, none but this strange and instinctive workmanship 

 this antagonism and superiority of organic vital forces to 

 the inanimate powers of nature which can explain such 

 phenomena as those of the Maldive group ; or the simple 



