ISIDINA. 225 
The inhabitants of the Molucca Islands use it medicinally as a remedy 
in certain diseases ; but as they use it for the most opposite maladies, 
it may be doubted if it be really efficacious in any medicinal point of 
view. 
The sis hip~puris of Lamarck has a coral with numerous slender 
branches, furnished with cylindrical knots at intervals, contracted 
towards the middle, finely striated, and rose-coloured ; it is represented 
in Fig. 82, and has a singular resemblance to the Common Mare’s 
Tail (4ippuris vulgaris). 
Several other species belonging to this family are known. The 
same family includes the genera of .We/éthea and Mopsea,; which. how- 
ever, our limits forbid us to describe. 
CORALLINAE. 
The group of Corallinz consists of but a single genus, Corallium 
having a common axis, inarticulate, solid, and calcareous, the typical 
species of which furnishes a substance so hard, brilliant, and richly 
coloured, that it is much sought after as an object of adornment. 
This interesting Alcyonarian and its corallum require to be described 
in some detail. ; 
From very early times this coral has been adopted as an object 
of ornament. From the highest antiquity, also, efforts were made to 
ascertain its true origin, and to assign to it its place in the scale of 
Nature. Theophrastus, Dioscorides, and Pliny considered that the 
coral was a plant. Tournefort, in 1700, reproduced the same idea. 
Réaumur slightly modified this opinion of the ancients, and declared 
his opinion that the coral was the stony product of certain marine 
plants. Science was in this state, when a naturalist, who has acquired 
‘a great name, the Count de Marsigli, made a discovery which threw 
quite a new light on the true origin of this product. He announced 
that he had discovered the flowers of the coral. He represented these 
flowers in his fine work, ‘“‘ La Physique de la Mer,” which includes 
many interesting details respecting this curious product of the ocean. 
How could it be longer doubted that the coral was a plant, since he 
had seen its expanded flowers ? 
No one doubted it; and Réaumur proclaimed everywhere the dis- 
covery of the happy Academician. 
Unhappily, a discordant note soon mingled in this concert ; it 
even emanated from a pupil of Marsigli. 
Jean André de Peyssonnel was born at Marseilles in 1694. He 
was a student of medicine and natural history at Paris when the 
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