THE WONDEES OF THE SHOEE. 35 



to the summer of 1754, wlien good Mr. Ellis, the 

 wise and benevolent West Indian merchant, read 

 before the Eoyal Society his paper proving the 

 animal nature of corals, and followed it up the year 

 after by that " Essay toward a Natural History of 

 the Corallines, and other like marine productions of 

 the British Coasts," which forms the groundwork 

 of all our knowledge on the subject to this day. 

 The chapter in Dr. G. Johnston's British Zoophytes, 

 p. 407, or the excellent little resume thereof in Dr. 

 Landsborough's book on the same subject, is really 

 a saddening one, as one sees how loth were not 

 merely dreamers like Marsigli or Bonnet, but 

 sound-headed men like Pallas and Linne, to give up 

 the old sense-bound fancy, that these corals were 

 vegetables, and their polypes some sort of living- 

 flowers. Yet, after all, there are excuses for them. 

 Without our improved microscopes, and while the 

 sciences of comparative anatomy and chemistry 

 were yet infantile, it was difficvdt to believe what 

 was the truth ; and for this simple reason : that, as 

 usual, the truth, when discovered, turned out far 

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