GROWTH OF CORALS.: 371 



says Professor Dana, "are well known ; and although not emu- 

 lating in size the oaks of our forests — for they do not exceed 

 six or eight feet in height — they are gracefully branched, and 

 the whole surface blooms with coral polyps in place of leaves 

 and flowers. Shrubbery, tufts of rushes, beds of pinks, and 

 feathery mosses, are most exactly imitated. Many species spread 

 out in broad leaves or folia, and resemble some large-leaved plant 

 just unfolding ; when alive, the surface of each leaf is covered 

 with polyp-flowers. The cactus, the lichen clinging to the rock, 

 and the fungus in all its varieties, have their numerous repre- 

 sentatives. Besides these forms imitating vegetation, there are 

 gracefully modelled vases, some of which are three or four feet 

 in diameter, made up of a network of branches and branchlets, 

 and sprigs of flowers. There are also solid coral hemispheres 

 like domes among the vases and shrubbery, occasionally ten 

 or even twenty feet in diameter, whose symmetrical surface is 

 gorgeously decked with polyp-stars of purple and emerald- 

 green." 



Under such aspects appear the living organisms whose com- 

 bined efforts have mainly constructed those reefs and islands of 

 coral origin which now He scattered far and wide over the 

 surface of the equatorial ocean. Words are inadequate to ex- 

 press the splendour of the submarine gardens with which the 

 lithophytes clothe the rocky shores of the tropical seas. 



" There are few things more beautiful to look at," says Captain 

 Basil Hall, " than these corallines when viewed through two or 

 three fathoms of clear and still water. It is hardly an exag- 

 geration to assert that the colours of the rainbow are put to 

 shame on a bright sunny day by what meets the view on 

 looking into the sea in those fairy regions." And Ehrenberg 

 was so struck with the magnificent spectacle presented by the 

 living polyparia in the Bed Sea that he exclaimed with enthu- 

 siasm, "Where is the paradise of flowers that can rival, in 

 variety and beauty, these living wonders of the ocean!" 



Besides the charms of their own growth, the tropical coral 

 gardens afford a refuge or a dwelling-place to numberless 

 animals clothed in gorgeous apparel. Fishes attired in azure, 

 scarlet, and gold, crustaceans, sea-urchins, sea-stars, sea ane- 

 mones, annelides, of a brilliancy of colour unknown in the 

 northern seas, glide or swim along through their tangled 



