APPENDIX 



THE NATURAL HISTORY OF A CORAL REEF, 

 (See page 240.) 



I HAD just finished correcting the proof of the preceding 

 pages when my attention was directed^ to the geological 

 formation of the peninsula of Florida, in the United States. 

 My friend, C. C. Hoyer Miller, Esq. having just returned 

 from a survey of the vast beds of phosphate for which that 

 place is so famous informs me that in one county alone, con- 

 sisting of between 5000 and 6000 acres, he thoroughly 

 tested one tract of 600 acres, and the result showed upon the 

 analyses, from 66 to 70 per cent, of phosphate of lime, and 

 that the probable estimate of the entire bed of 600 acres 

 would yield a total quantity of 1,800,000 tons. 



What is phosphate of lime ? and what is its use ? and how 

 came this vast deposit to be where it is now discovered ? 



It was absorbed into the system, and utilised into the 

 structure of multitudinous polyps in the erection of their 

 dwellings, just as an oyster employs the material in the 

 structure of its shell, and it is the very ingredient neces- 

 sary in the fertilization of plants, and is converted by the 

 chemist into manure for the food of the necessaries of life, 

 and is a lively illustration of the words which St. James 

 uses when he speaks of " the course (R. T. the wlieel) of 

 nature" a reference, I believe, to the acknowledged fact 



