72 PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS. 



sons, T. i. p. 55.) The same necessities combine with a 

 knowledge of the habits of animals to induce the same 

 artifices and modes of capture among nations who are en- 

 tirely unconnected with each other. 



Although, as we have already remarked, the zone in- 

 cluded between 22 or 24 degrees of latitude on either side 

 of the equator, appears to be the true region of the calca- 

 reous saxigenous lithophytes which raise wall-like struc- 

 tures, yet coral reefs are also found, favoured it is supposed 

 by the warm current of the Gulf-stream, in lat. 32 23', at 

 the Bermudas, where they have been extremely well de- 

 scribed by Lieutenant Nelson. (Transactions of the Geo- 

 logical Society, 2d Series, 1837, Vol. V. Pt. i. p. 103.) In 

 the southern hemisphere, corals, (Millepores and Cellepores), 

 are found singly as far south as Chiloe, the Archipelago of 

 Chonos, and Tierra de Puego, in 53 lat. ; and Eetepores 

 are even found in lat. 72-^-. 



Since the second voyage of Captain Cook there have 

 been many defenders of the hypothesis put forward by him 

 as well as by Reinhold and George Porster, according to 

 which the low coral islands of the Pacific have been built 

 up by living creatures from the depths of the bottom of the 

 sea. The distinguished investigators of nature, Quoy and 

 Gaimard, who accompanied Captain Preycinet in his voyage 

 round the world in the frigate Uranie, were the first who 

 ventured, in 1823, to express themselves with great bold- 

 ness and freedom in opposition to the views of the two 

 Porsters (father and son), of Plinders, and of Peron. 

 (Annales des Sciences Naturelles, T. vi., 1825, p. 273.) 



