464 



NATURAL HISTORY OF ARABIA. 



stones for the purpose of building. Most of the houses 

 in Tehama are constructed of this material ; so that every 

 cottage is a cabinet of Natural History. The island of 

 Kameran is formed entirely of coral rock, which rises 

 without the slightest inequality of surface to the height of 

 twenty feet above the level of the sea. The quantity of 

 madrepores, millepores, algae, and other substances, which 

 procured for that gulf the name of the Weedy Sea, is 

 immense. When rowing gently along in a calm day 

 they appear to the eye much the same as in the time 

 of Strabo and Pliny, who described them as forests un- 

 der water. Nor is the comparison inapposite. Shaw 

 remarks that several of them were eight or ten feet high, 

 growing sometimes pyramidal like the cypress ; at other 

 times their branches spread more open, resembling the 

 oak ; while the entire bottom was overlaid with a rich 

 green carpet of creeping plants. At low water, especial- 

 ly after strong tides or high winds, these marine produc- 

 tions are cast ashore in great quantities. The coralline 

 bodies increase to an extraordinary size. Several of them, 

 such as the meandrina or brainstone, are observed to re- 

 tain constantly a certain specific form ; while the astroite 

 madrepores have each their different asterisks or starlike 

 figures impressed upon their surface. They assume the 

 most fantastic shapes, as in course of their increase they 

 mould themselves into the figures of rocks, shells, and 

 other objects, that lie within the reach of their growth. 

 With respect to the other inhabitants of the waters, it is 

 sufficient to state that both the Red Sea and especially the 

 Arabian Gulf swarm with species of Medusce, Salpa;, 

 FistularitB, and other kinds, which led Forskal to believe 

 that the phosphorescence of the seas was owing to the im- 

 mense numbers of these animals. 



THE END. 



Printed by Oliver & Boyd, 

 Tweecldale Court, High Street, Edinburgh. 



