90 MULTITM E PAEVO. 



Cook, and Kotzebue, and Beechey, by Stewart and Ellis, 

 Darwin and Cheever, But, when we know that these 

 thousand isles, these endless reefs, these huge barriers 

 that curb the furious ocean, are produced by tiny, soft- 

 bodied sea-anemones, by atoms of pulp, sluggish and 

 seemingly helpless morsels of animated jelly, individually 

 no bigger than the smallest flower that nestles in the 

 hedge-bank — our wonder, instead of being dispersed by 

 our philosophy, is deepened and incomparably aug- 

 mented by it. " We feel surprise when travellers tell us 

 of the vast dimensions of the Pyramids, but how utterly 

 insignificant are the greatest of these when compared to 

 these' mountains of stone accumulated by the agency of 

 various minute and tender animals ! This is a wonder 

 which does not at first strike the «ye of the body, but, 

 after reflection, the eye of reason." * 



The researches of the eminent naturalist whose words 

 I have just quoted, have shewn us that the coral polype 

 does not build from the fathomless depths of sea which 

 immediately surround these reefs and islands. He seems 

 to imply, indeed, that the coral animals cannot exist at a 

 greater depth than thirty fathoms ; but, whatever may 

 be the case in tropical seas, we have already seen that 

 living corals exist and build compound polypidoms at far 

 greater depths in our northern latitudes. Assuming, 

 however, that no reef is commenced deeper than thirty 

 fathoms, and that below that depth the building instinct 

 is not carried on, the only hypothesis which meets all the 

 exigencies presented by the actual phenomena of fring- 

 * Darwin, Nat. Voy., oliap. xx. 



