96 KATE OF GROWTH. Ch. IV. 



Pharaoh ; and according to Sir C. Lyell 1 there are 

 certain corals at Bermuda, which are known by tra- 

 dition to have been living for centuries. 2 To show 

 how slowly coral-reefs grow upwards, Captain Beechey 3 

 has adduced the case of the Dolphin Eeef off Tahiti, 

 which has remained at the same depth beneath the 

 surface, namely, about two fathoms and a-half, for a 

 period of sixty- seven years. There are reefs in the 

 Eed Sea, which certainly do not appear 4 to have in- 

 creased in dimensions during the last half century, and 

 from the comparison of old charts with recent surveys, 

 probably not during the last two hundred years. 

 These, and other similar facts, have so strongly im- 

 pressed many with the belief of the extreme slowness 

 of the growth of corals, that they have even doubted 

 the possibility of islands in the great oceans having 

 been formed by their agency. Others again, who have 

 not been overwhelmed by this difficulty, have ad- 

 mitted that it would require thousands, and tens of 

 thousands of years, to form a mass even of incon- 



1 Lyell's Principles of Geology, book iii. ch. xviii. 



2 Since the preceding pages (of the first edit.) hare been printed off, 

 I have received from Sir 0. Lyell an interesting pamphlet, entitled 

 Kemarks upon Coral-Formations, &c, by J. Couthouy, Boston, United 

 States, 1842. A statement (p. 6) is here given on the authority of the 

 Rev. J. Williams, corroborating the above remarks on the antiquity of 

 certain individual corals, namely, that at Upolu, one of the Navigator 

 islands, ' particular clumps of coral are known to the fishermen by 

 name, derived from either some particular configuration or tradition 

 attached to them, and handed down from time immemorial.' 



3 Beechey' s Voyage to the Pacific, ch. viii. 



4 Ehrenberg, ut sup. p. 43, 



