ILLUSTRATIONS (7). CORAL REEFS. 257 



nefortia gnapholoides, of flowering species of Dolichos, of 

 Avicennia nitida, and mangrove-thickets (Rhizophora), the 

 coral-islands formed as it were an archipelago of floating 

 gardens. "Son Cayos verdes y graciosos llenos de arboledas," 

 says the admiral. On my voyage from Batabano to Trinidad 

 de Cuba, I remained for several days in these gardens, which 

 lie to the east of the great Isle of Pines, abounding in maho- 

 gany, for the purpose of determining the longitude of the 

 different Cayos. 



The Cayos Flamenco* Bonito, de Diego Perez, and de 

 Piedras, are coral islands, rising only from 8 to 15 inches 

 above the level of the sea. The upper edge of the reef 

 does not consist merely of dead polyp-trunks, but is rather 

 formed of a true conglomerate, in which angular pieces of 

 coral, lying in various directions, are embedded in a cement 

 composed of granules of quartz. In Cayo de Piedras I saw 

 such embedded masses of coral, some of them measuring 

 upwards of three cubic feet. Several of the West Indian 

 smaller coral islands have fresh water, a phenomenon 

 which merits a careful investigation wherever it occurs (as for 

 instance near Radak in the South Sea),* since it has some- 

 times been ascribed to hydrostatic pressure, acting from a 

 distant coast (as in Venice, and in the Bay of Xagua, east of 

 Batabano), and sometimes to the filtration of rain-water, f 



The living gelatinous covering of the calcareous fabric 

 of the coral-trunks attracts fishes and even turtles in 

 search of food. In the time of Columbus the now desolate 

 district of the Jardines del Rey was animated by a singular 

 branch of industry pursued by the inhabitants of the sea- 

 coasts of Cuba, who availed themselves of a little fish, the 

 Remora, or sucking-fish (the so-called Ship-holder), probably 

 the Echeneis naucrates, for catching turtles. A long an^ 

 strong line, made of the fibres of the palm, was attached 

 to the tail of the fish. The Remora (called in Spanish 

 Reves, or reversed, because at first sight the back and 

 abdomen might easily be mistaken for each other), attaches 

 itself by suction to the turtle through the indented and 

 moveable cartilaginous plates of the upper shell that covers 



* Chamisso, in Kotzebue's Entdeckungsreise, bd. iii., s. 108. 

 f See my Essai Politique sur I' lie de Cuba, t. ii. p. 137. 



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