SEA-FAN MAKERS. 203 



round it year by year, but the deposit went on 

 with greatest rapidity in the greatest depressions, 

 and hence, after a while, a circular outline was 

 produced ; the several rings indicate the succes- 

 sive depositions, and the dark radiating lines point 

 to the grooves, in which in earlier days the central 

 large canals surrounded the stem." l 



It has been estimated that the annual value 

 of the coral dredged in the Mediterranean amounts 

 to nearly 180,000, but M. Lacaze-Duthiers thinks 

 that this is nearly three times as much as it 

 really should be, and that in 1860 probably the 

 total value did not exceed 60,372. At a rough 

 estimate, average coral realises about twenty shillings 

 per pound to the merchants, some kinds being 

 worth considerably less, and the choicest kinds 

 "very much more. A delicate pink variety, being 

 the scarcest, obtains the highest price, and is 

 greatly esteemed by the Italians. It is the opinion 

 of many that the coral fishery is in a state of 

 gradual decay, and that the coral-beds are yearly 

 becoming more and more exhausted, so that, unless 

 something is done, either by artificial culture or 

 otherwise,, this industry will, at no very remote 

 period, be numbered with the things of the past. 



1 Dr. H. Lawson, "Natural History of Red Coral," 

 Popular Science Review (1865), p. 72. 



m 



