THE SCHOOL OF THE SHORE 7 



water. It is possible in this way to get very 

 near the animals, and to watch their goings on. 

 Mr. W. H. Longley tells of his experiences 

 beside a tropical coral-reef. " It is" a strange 

 world in which the diver finds himself; it is so 

 small and still; so surrounded with mystery; 

 so surprisingly unlike that which one imagines 

 it to be, observing it from the surface. Even 

 when the light is brightest, and the water most 

 free from sediment, one never sees objects at a 

 greater distance than a few yards (in one very 

 favourable case, fifteen paces) ; and if a heavy 

 surf is pounding a short distance seaward, so 

 much debris may be borne inshore on a rising 

 tide that one may be shut in almost as com- 

 pletely as in a blinding snowstorm, and have 

 no means of finding one's way back to the boat 

 other than following the hose. No sound 

 reaches one save that of the air rushing into 

 the hood at each stroke of the pump above. 

 Graceful Gorgonians (i.e. Sea-fans; much 

 branched, flexible, Alcyonarian corals), pur- 

 ple, brown, yellow, or olive, may sway gently 

 as the lazy swell rolls overhead; or, as one 

 clambers about the face of some submerged 

 escarpment, one may see, from below, sheets of 

 foam spreading where trampling rollers raised 



