410 Keport of the State Geologist. 



ce qui passoit pour f euilles, etoient d'une apparence membraneuse, 

 dans lesquelles je decouvrais que ce qu'on j prenoit pour f euilles 

 disposees alternativement, ou dans un sens oppose, n'etoit autre 

 chose que de petits tuyaux contenant chacun un petite insecte." 



The work of Teembley, JusstEu and Guettard convinced Reau- 

 mur that the views of Peysonnelle were in the main correct, 

 and that he had been in error in combatting them. He now 

 advocated the animality of corals (Memoires pour servir a I'His- 

 toire des Insectes, Paris, 17^:2, tome xvi, Prefatio, p.p. 68-80), but 

 so deep seated was the belief in the vegetality of corals that 

 his views made a very slight impression. Dr. Vitaliano Donati 

 in a work entitled " J^ew discoveries relating to the History of 

 Corals," translated by Stack and published in Phil. Trans., Yol. 

 XLYII, Feb. 7, 1750, gave a minute account of the coral and its 

 inhabitant, but his terms were botanical and his opinions so 

 doubtful that he rather confirmed the advocates of the vegetable 

 theory in their opinion. 



A few years afterward (Phil. Trans. 1757, abridg. xi, p. 83), he 

 says : " I am now of the opinion that the coral is nothing less than 

 a real animal with a great number of heads. I consider the 

 polyps of the coral as the heads of the animal. This animal has 

 a bone ramified in the shape of a shrub. This bone is covered 

 with a kind of flesh, which is the flesh of the animal. My 

 observations have discovered to me several analogies between 

 the animals of a kind approaching to this. There are for 

 instance Keratophtta, which do not differ from coral, except 

 that the bone or prop that forms part of the animal is testaceous 

 in the coral and horny in KERAiopflYfA" Peysonnelle was 

 still living and in 1751 he sent to the Koyal Society a treatise 

 entitled '^ Traite du corail, contenant les nouvelles decouvertes, 

 qu'on a fait sur le corail, les pores, madrepores, eschares, lito- 

 phitons, eponges et autres corps et productions, que le mer four- 

 nit, etc., par le Sieur de Peysonnelle, M. D., correspondent de la 

 Koyal Acad, de Paris, etc., etc." This manuscript was never 

 published, though a review of it was given by Dr. Watson in 

 the 47th volume of the Phil. Trans., published in 1752. This 

 treatise was very lengthy and consists of about 400 quarto pages. 



In the same year, 1752, we find the following statement in 

 answer to Peysonnelle concerning the formation of corals. 



