ISIDIN^. 225 



The inhabitants of the Molucca Islands use it medicinally as a remedy 

 in certain diseases ; but as they use it for the most opposite maladies, 

 it may be doubted if it be really efficacious in any medicinal point of 

 view. 



The Isis hippuris of Lamarck has a coral with numerous slender 

 branches, furnished with cylmdrical knots at intervals, contracted 

 towards the middle, finely striated, and rose-coloured ; it is represented 

 in Fig. 82, and has a singular resemblance to the Common Mare's 

 Tail {Hippwis vulgaris). 



Several other species belonging to this family are known. The 

 same family includes the genera of Melithea and Mopsea; which, how- 

 ever, our limits forbid us to describe. 



Coralline. 



The group of Corallinse consists of but a single genus, Coralliuin 

 having a common axis, inarticulate, solid, and calcareous, the typical 

 species of which furnishes a substance so hard, brilliant, and richly 

 coloured, that it is much sought after as an object of adornment. 

 This interesting Alcyonarian and its corallum require to be described 

 in some detail. 



From very early times this coral has been adopted as an object 

 of ornament. From the highest antiquity, also, efforts were made to 

 ascertain its true origin, and to assign to it its place in the scale of 

 Nature. Theophrastus, Dioscorides, and Pliny considered that the 

 coral was a plant. Tournefort, in 1700, reproduced the same idea. 

 Reaumur slightly modified this opinion of the ancients, and declared 

 his opinion that the coral was the stony product of certain marine 

 plants. Science was in this state, when a naturalist, who has acquired 

 a great name, the Count de Marsigli, made a discovery which threw 

 quite a new light on the true origin of this product. He announced 

 that he had discovered the flowers of the coral. He represented these 

 flowers in his fine work, " La Physique de la Mer," which includes 

 many interesting details respecting this curious product of the ocean. 

 How could it be longer doubted that the coral was a plant, since he 

 had seen its expanded flowers ? 



No one doubted it; and Reaumur proclaimed everywhere the dis- 

 cover}' of the happy Academician. 



Unhappily, a discordant note soon mingled in this concert ; it 

 even emanated from a pupil of Marsigli. 



Jean Andre de Peyssonnel was born at Marseilles in 1694. He 

 was a student of medicine and natural history at Paris when the 



p 



