60 THE UNIVERSE. 



tation. The Gauls and Indians decorated their swords and 

 armor with it ; nowadays it is only employed in female or- 

 naments. In one country the daughters of Nubia load their 

 ebony shoulders with long necklaces of coral, the clear red 

 gleam of which, in another land, brings out in full relief 

 the satiny white necks of the beautiful Circassians. 



But it has required twenty centuries of incessant groping 

 in the dark to unveil the mysterious nature of this coral. 



It forms a branched stem, of a beautiful red color, as hard 

 as the most compact rocks, and, like them, capable of tak- 

 ing a fine polish. When it is withdrawn from the sea, of 

 which it inhabits the great depths only, it is, from the ar- 

 rangement of its branches, precisely like a bush in minia- 

 ture, and a section of its stem presents concentric layers 

 analogous to those of certain trees. Its branches are cov- 

 ered with a soft rose-colored bark, and display here and 

 there small holes, in each of which resides one of the build- 

 ers of the coral. These are so many Polypi, which, when 

 they expand, wear all the appearance of pretty little flowers 

 of a beautiful white color, with eight divisions spread out 

 like rays, and the borders of which are ornamented with a 

 fringe of cilia or minute hairs. 



It was this deceitful appearance which made naturalists 

 so long dubious with regard to the nature of coral. 



Its extreme hardness and the beautiful polish it takes 

 led some observers to look upon it as a simple mineral. 



But the idea which seemed to predominate over all others 

 was that of coral being only a submarine shrub. This was 

 the opinion of Pliny and Dioscorides ; and these two great 

 scholars, seeing it was so hard and compact, added that the 



