THE SCHOOL OF THE SHORE 7 
water. It is possible in this way to get very 
near the animals, and to watch their goings on. 
Mr. W. H. Longley tells of his experiences 
beside a tropical coral-reef. “It is a strange 
world in which the diver finds himself; it is so 
small and still; so surrounded with mystery; 
so surprisingly unlike that which one imagines 
it to be, observing it from the surface. Even 
when the light is brightest, and the water most 
free from sediment, one never sees objects at a 
greater distance than a few yards (in one very 
favourable case, fifteen paces) ; and if a heavy 
surf is pounding a short distance seaward, so 
much débris may be borne inshore on a rising 
tide that one may be shut in almost as com- 
pletely as in a blinding snowstorm, and have 
no means of finding one’s way back to the boat 
other than following the hose. No sound 
reaches one save that of the air rushing into 
the hood at each stroke of the pump above. 
Graceful Gorgonians (i.e. Sea-fans; much 
branched, flexible, Alcyonarian corals), pur- 
ple, brown, yellow, or olive, may sway gently 
as the lazy swell rolls overhead; or, as one 
clambers about the face of some submerged 
escarpment, one may see, from below, sheets of 
foam spreading where trampling rollers raised 
