CORAL ISLANDS. 397 



tuated under the equator, the beautiful vegetation of 

 which rises upon limestone. Cocoa Island, near Guam, 

 is in the same condition, being also composed of lime- 

 stone. In general, if they are inhabited, consequently 

 they have springs or lakes of fresh water, we may almost 

 be certain that they are not composed of lithophytes, or 

 are only so in part, because springs could not be formed 

 in their porous substances. Some of the Caroline Isles 

 are excessively low ; we supposed them encrusted with 

 madrepores ; and as they have inhabitants there must be 

 somewhere in them a soil favourable to the accumula- 

 tion of fresh water*. 



In restraining the power of these animalcules, con- 

 cludes Quoy and Gaimard, and in pointing out the limits 

 which nature has prescribed them, we have no other ob- 

 ject than to furnish more correct data to the naturalists 

 who aspire to great hypothetical considerations, regard- 

 ing the conformation of the globe. On reconsidering 

 these zoophytes with greater attention, they will no longer 

 be seen filling up the basins of the seas, raising islands, 

 increasing the size of the continents, threatening future 

 generations with a solid equatorial circle formed of their 

 spoils. Their influence, with regard to the road-steads 

 or harbours, in which they multiply, is already great 

 enough, without adding more to it. But, compared with 



* On glancing over the charts of Kotzebue's voyage, we are struck 

 at seeing several of these islands grouped in a circular form, connected 

 with one another by reefs which appear to consist of madrepores, and 

 to present, by this arrangement, a small internal sea of great depth, to 

 which an entrance is afforded by one or more openings. May not this 

 arrangement be owing to submarine craters, on the edge of which the 

 lithophytes have erected their habitations ? 



