THE SCHOOL OF THE SHORE 7 



It is possible in this way to get very near the 

 animals, and to watch their goings on. 



Mr. W. H. Longley tells of his experiences 

 beside a tropical coral-reef. "It is a strange 

 world in which the diver finds himself ; it is so 

 small and still ; so surrounded with mystery ; 

 so surprisingly unlike that which one imagines 

 it to be, observing it from the surface. Even 

 when the light is brightest, and the water most 

 free from sediment, one never sees objects at 

 a greater distance than a few yards (in one 

 very favourable case, fifteen paces) ; and if a 

 heavy surf is pounding a short distance sea- 

 ward, so much debris may be borne inshore on 

 a rising tide that one may be shut in almost as 

 completely as in a blinding snowstorm, and 

 have no means of finding one's way back to 

 the boat other than following the hose. No 

 sound reaches one save that of the air rushing 

 into the hood at each stroke of the pump 

 above. Graceful Gorgonians (i.e. Sea-fans ; 

 much branched, flexible, Alcyonarian corals), 

 purple, brown, yellow, or olive, may sway 

 gently as the lazy swell rolls overhead ; or, as 

 one clambers about the face of some submerged 

 escarpment, one may see, from below, sheets 

 of foam spreading where trampling rollers 



