226 THE OCEAN WORLD. 



Academic des Sciences charged him with the task of studying the 

 coral in a hving state. Peyssonnel began his observations in the 

 neighbourhood of Marseilles m 1723, and continued to pursue it on the 

 North African coast, where he had been sent on a mission by the 

 Government. Aided by a long series of observations, as exact as 

 they were delicate, Peyssonnel demonstrated that the supposed 

 flowers which the Count de Marsigli thought he had discovered in 

 the coral, were nothing else but true animals, and showed that the 

 coral was neither plant nor the product of a plant, but a being with 

 life, which he placed in the first " rung " of the zoological ladder. 

 " I put the flower of the coral," says Peyssonnel, " in vases full of 

 sea-water, and 1 saw that what had been taken for a flower of this 

 pretended plant was, in truth, only an animal, like a Httle sea-nettle, or 

 polyp. I had the pleasure of seeing the feet of the creature move about, 

 and having put the vase full of water, which contained the coral, in a 

 gentle heat o'\'er the fire, all the small animals seemed to expand. 

 The polyp extended his feet, and showed what M. de Marsigli and I 

 had taken for the petals of a flower. The calyx of this pretended 

 flower, in short, was the animal, which advanced and issued out of 

 its cell." 



The observations of Peyssonnel were calculated to put altogether 

 aside the theories which had till then attracted universal admiration ; 

 but they were coldly received by the naturalists who were his con- 

 temporaries. Reaumur distinguished himself greatly in his opposition 

 to the young innovator. He wTote to Peyssonnel in an ironical tone. 

 " I think," he says, " as you do, that no one has hitherto been dis- 

 posed to regard the coral as the work of an animal. We cannot deny 

 that this idea is both new and singular ; but the coral, as it appears 

 to me, never could have been constructed by sea-nettles or polyps, if 

 we may judge from the manner in which you make them labour." 



What appeared impossible to Reaumur was, however, a fact, 

 which Peyssonnel now demonstrated to hundreds by his experiments 

 at Marseilles. Nevertheless, even Bernard de Jussieu did not find 

 the reasons he urged strong enough to induce him to abandon the 

 opinions he had fomied as to their vegetable origin. Afflicted and 

 disgusted at the indiff'erent success with which his labours were 

 received, Peyssonnel abandoned his investigations. He even aban- 

 doned science and society, and sought an obscure retirement in the 

 Antilles as a naval surgeon ; and his manuscripts, which he left in 

 France, have never been printed. These manuscripts, written in 

 1744, are preserved in the library of the Museum of Natural Histor)^ 

 at Paris. It should be added, in order to complete this recital, that 



