THE TRIUMPH OF LH'E 



most level with the surface of the water, from 

 the crown of which the vertical rays of the tropi- 

 cal sun is scarcely able to drink the water that is 

 thrown up by the highest surf. On this crown, 

 however, and only separated from the white 

 foam by a narrow rim of white lime ledge, there 

 rises in this strange wind-swept place, like the 

 masts of some ship that has existed through the 

 storm, high living structures. From these stiff 

 crooked stems, bent toward and from each other 

 and often twisted in net-like forms, there rise 

 long waving green fans in trembling canopies, 

 against the marine blue of the heavens. These 

 are cocoa palms. They are the plants that have 

 actually succeeded in conquering the realm of 

 the free air. Billions of cells have learned to 

 build in a truer co-operation a yet more artis- 

 tic web than that of which the giant sea-weed 

 of the ocean was composed. The thin algal 

 stem has hardened into a woody trunk, that re- 

 mains much softer than the lime bodies of the 

 coral animals and which, by elastically yielding 

 to the frightful storms of the ocean of air which 

 throw themselves with full force against this 

 beach, can maintain itself for many decades. 



In the whole structure there still remains 

 something to remind one of the coral polyps of 

 the ocean meadow, and the crinoids of the deep 

 sea bottom. But the giant crown of the palm 

 fjMi do€S nbt aii^e tot nyurishmelit up tiiferfe in 



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