♦ KNOAA^'LEDGE ♦ 



[November 1, 1888. 



tion of his great a-stronomical works, and had not come in 

 contact with any person from any infected district before 

 leaving for New York, and on his way thither he went 

 seventy- five miles around to avoid the infected regions. It 

 has been ascertained that there were ninety-three passengers 

 on the train with him, and yet among this big list of 

 passengers no otlier case was developed, nor has any since 

 developed so far as known. That strikes even those unac- 

 quainted with the disease as somewhat remarkable, to say 

 the least. But more than that, Mr. Proctor was reported 

 sick and vomiting the first day of his journey, and any 

 layman knows that that is not the first indication of yellow 

 fever, and Dr. Gary, in his report, a copy of which we are 

 son-y was not given us, makes this plain. Mr. Proctor, if 

 he really came in contact with the disease, must have passed 

 through an incubating season before the microbes would 

 have made t^ieir presence known, and vomiting, instead of 

 being the first is one of the last manifestations of the disease. 



But granting that all the yellow fever symptoms had 

 been plainly and unmistakably developed, there is no excuse 

 nor palliation, say these doctors, and lighteously, for his 

 removal from his hotel after having remained there for two 

 days and a half, and at midnight in a raging storm. The 

 mischief, if any, had already been done. 



It is no wonder therefore that his friends and neighbours, 

 and every intelligent citizen of Florida should be shocked 

 and indignant to hear of the barbarous and unprecedented 

 cruelties to which he was so mercilessly subjected. 



When ]\Ir. Waterman was taken sick in Tampa at the 

 beginning of this season, notwithstanding that city passed 

 through an epidemic of the scourge the summer before, and 

 is directly in the yellow fever zone, he was subjected to no 

 such treatment as that visited upon Mr. Proctor, but on the 

 contrary, IMr. Waterman was never removed from his 

 hotel, which was located in the heart of the city. And if 

 he had been, the enlightened and humane physicians of that 

 city would not have forced him out in a torrent of wind 

 and rain and in the middle of the night. If they had, 

 public sentiment would have driven them from the city. 



The " eminent doctors " who subjected Mr. Proctor to this 

 inhuman treatment should follow Henry Guy Carlton's 

 advice, published in our last issue from the New York IForW, 

 and when another suspicious case of fever is developed in 

 New York, consult some " old turbaned New Orleans 

 mammy," with " wrapped and kinky hair," and be guided 

 wholly by her counsels. She would not mistake a case of 

 malarial hmmorrhagic fever ior yellow fever, and in any event 

 would not hurry so distinguished a victim forth in a storm 

 at night to meet his certain and almost immediate death. 



The statement of Professor Jacobi, " that yellow fever is 

 in all parts of Florida, and that there is danger of persons 

 from any section of the State spreading the disease," 

 was also discussed by these doctors. They positively 

 announced, after the most diligent and rigid investigations, 

 that in only four of the forty-five counties of Florida has a 

 single case of yellow fever made its appearance this summer. 



THE FORMATION OF CORAL REEFS. 



By W. H. Wesley. 

 |HERE are perhaps few facts more striking 

 to the imagination than the existence of the 

 innumerable reefs and islands of coral which 

 bestrew our tropical seas. At the same 

 time there are few problems in physical 

 geography more full of difliculties than 

 those presented by these Uttle rings of land 

 w yards in width, and rising but a few feet 



^-often onlj' a 



above the swell of the mightiest oceans, to which they oppose 

 a barrier, apparently so frail yet really so stable. The dis- 

 cussion with regard to their formation which has taken 

 place during recent years, and of which it is proposed to 

 give a brief resume, shows that the problem is yet by no 

 means solved. 



The principal reef building species of coral are essentially 

 shallow water forms, living between extreme low water- 

 mark and a depth of twenty to thirty fathoms. They 

 flourish especially where the surface temperature never 

 sinks below 70^ Fahrenheit, and where the annual range is 

 not more than 12°. They require an abundant supply of 

 fresh water, and are killed if sand or other sediment is 

 deposited upon them. They cannot endure an exposure to 

 the air for even a few hours. 



Coi'al reefs have been divided into three chisses, viz.: — 



1. Fringing reefs, near a shore, from which they are 

 separated by a narrow and shallow ch.annel. 



2. Barrier reefs, forming a more or less perfect ring 

 round a central island, with a deeper and wider '• lagoon " 

 channel. 



3. Atolls, or rings of reef without any central island. 

 The smaller atolls are generally perfect rings, and in many 

 of them the lagoon has been filled up, while the larger 

 atolls have mostly open channels into the lagoon. They are 

 sometimes mere rings of separate islets, and there are cases 

 in which the islets forming the rim are themselves smaller 

 atolls. The rim seldom exceeds a mile in width, and is 

 mostly much less. 



Many atolls and other reefs are always submerged, and 

 others are only uncovered at extreme low tide. The sea- 

 ward face of barrier reefs and atolls is generally very steep 

 and the depth outside very great, while the lagoon is com- 

 paratively shallow. In some of the larger atolls, however, 

 the lagoon is in parts as deep as 40 fathoms. 



In all coral reefs it is only the extreme outer margin that 

 is composed of living coral. The mass of the reef below 

 water is formed of densely compacted coral, resembUng 

 ordinary limestone ; but the portion above the water which 

 (except in cases of upheaval) mu.st have been formed 

 by wave action alone is more porous in structure. 

 Msisses of coral, detached from the outer face, are piled on 

 the top, forming a rampart, which becomes consolidated by 

 the deposit of finer particles and of carbonate of liuie held 

 in solution by the water, while the living coral on the 

 exterior face preserves the land from destruction. The 

 rampart of coral boulders and blown coral sand is usually 

 the highest portion of an atoll, the land sloping gradually 

 towards the lagoon. 



After the reef is thus raised above the sea-level there is a 

 gradual accumulation of soil, in great part from the pumice 

 stone from submarine volcanoes. The pumice being piled on 

 the reef by the waves, in time disintegrates and forms a red 

 clayey soil, which becomes deeper towards the lagoon shore, 

 where the most luxuriant vegetation is found. 



We will now consider some of the explanations of coral 

 formations which have been given. Long ago Chamisso 

 suggested that an atoll owes its form to the growth of coral 

 round the margin, the deposit of debris from the outside 

 checking growth in the interior. To account for the depth 

 of water outside the reef — far too great for the reef building 

 corals — it was suggested that the growths commenced round 

 the summits of submerged volcanic cones. But it was con- 

 sidered improbable by Darwin that such cones could exist Ln 

 sufficient numbers, and after an extended study of many 

 islands in the Pacific and other oceans, he arrived at the 

 following conclusions : — 



Coral formations lie in a region of subsidence. The corals 

 commenced to grow round the sloping shore of an island, 



