CORAL BUILDERS. 217 



pass could scarcely be found than in the part of 

 Montgomery's ' Pelican Island ' relating to coral 

 formations. The poetry of this excellent author is 

 good, but the facts nearly all errors, if literature 

 allows of such an incongruity. There is no * toil/ no 

 ' skill/ no ' dwelling/ no ' sepulchre/ in the coral 

 plantation, any more than in a flower-garden ; and as 

 little are the coral polyps shapeless worms that 

 ' writhe and shrink their tortuous bodies to grotesque 

 dimensions.' The poet oversteps his licence, and, 

 besides, degrades his subject, when downright false to 

 nature." 1 We might add to this the Professor's own 

 words : " It is not, perhaps, within the sphere of 

 science to criticise the poet " ; and evidently no one 

 will think the less highly of a beautiful poem, as a 

 poem, because it is by no means rigidly scientific, and 

 even " the facts are nearly all errors." It had for its 

 object the inculcation of truth, by means of fable, and 

 not the dissemination of scientific information, on the 

 structure and development of coral formations. We 

 fear that we shall still remain heretical enough to 

 delight in the " Pelican Island." 



These preliminary observations introduce us at 

 once to the subject of " coral builders," those minute 

 marine animals which have done so much in the 

 past, and are still at work in the present, in the con- 



1 Dana, "Corals and Coral Islands," p. 3. 



