TOILERS IN THE SEA. 215 



CHAPTER VII. 



CORAL BUILDERS. 



WRITING concerning coral islands, and their 

 inhabitants, a justly celebrated American 

 Professor waxes eloquent over the errors of some 

 of his predecessors, and even sometimes to the 

 extent of being unduly hard upon their failings. 

 " Many of those," he says, " who have discoursed 

 most poetically on zoophytes have imagined that the 

 polyps were mechanical workers, heaping up the 

 piles of coral rock by their united labours ; and 

 science is hardly yet rid of terms which imply that 

 each coral is the constructed hive or house of a 

 swarm of polyps, like the honeycomb of the bee, or 

 the hillock of a colony of ants." Although we feel a 

 little sympathy with him in his indignation, it is 

 doubtful whether he has not accepted in too literal 

 a sense what he has characterised as a poetical dis- 

 course. Whether or not he has done so, it may 

 somewhat mitigate his indignation if at once we 

 accept his explanation of the process of manufacture. 



