THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE 



hammer and break off a piece of the rock it- 

 self. These coral animals do not cling like the 

 Alpine rose with a root work in a layer of hu- 

 mus that makes but a shallow layer with a 

 sharp break and no transition stage between it 

 and the rock. The corals immediately cover 

 the rock itself witli their felt-like colored living 

 mass. Indeed it appears as though the body 

 sent out points of a rosette form directly into 

 the rock itself. I proceed to investigate these 

 facts at once. These little stone stars that pen- 

 etrate into the flesh of the coral animal from 

 beneath and that appear to give the dead mod- 

 els to which the twining blossom-like forms of 

 this soft body attach themselves, are something 

 wholly diiferent : namely, a product of the living 

 body itself. We have seen how the radiolaria, 

 one-celled gelatinous balls, build up floats out 

 of hard pieces of silica, which they take up from 

 the water as man takes and swallows nourish- 

 ment. Tlie corals build the hard structure, so 

 to say, from a sort of internal excrement, which 

 by means of the directive power of the living 

 organisms takes on a definite purposeful and 

 highly pleasing form. The coral is not a free 

 swimmer that builds a float. It fastens itself 

 as a polyp to the earth. If it, in a similar man- 

 ner, is to excrete a firm support for itself, this 

 must take the form of a stool instead of a float, 

 a slrQ<:*Vire of a supp'ortitig and br^ciBg fcttM. 

 8T 



