RESURRECTION OF THE CONTINENT. 231 



the range of the Gulf Stream, and borne onward around 

 the peninsula of Florida into the Atlantic. As is well 

 known, the Gulf Stream in this region pursues a course 

 from west to east, and, in passing the Florida Keys, it 

 bends northward. At this flexure of the stream, the outer 

 portion of the current must necessarily be more rapid than 

 the inner, or that nearest the main land. The retardation 

 of the inner belt gives more time for the deposition of its 

 sediments, and we accordingly find a submarine bank of 

 mud gradually raised. When the summit of this bank 

 reaches to within about two hundred feet of the surface, 

 the coral-builder plants his foundations upon it, and pa- 

 tiently rears his massive reef to the ocean's surface, 



" Unconscious, not unworthy instrument 

 By which a hand invisible is rearing 

 A new creation in the secret deep." 



In the mean time the ocean stream is crowded farther 

 toward the south, where the waters are deeper. Simul- 

 taneously the mud deposits extend southward, and upon 

 these stretches southward also the " masonry imperishable" 

 of the little coral architect. As with all coral reefs, those 

 of Florida are gradually being covered with the materials 

 of a soil, and clothed with a tropical vegetation. Thus the 

 land at this point is continually extending itself. When 

 we inquire for what length of time and over what distance 

 this growth of the land has taken place, we find that half 

 the peninsula of Florida is underlaid by a reef which is ab- 

 solutely continuous with that now forming, and that the 

 species of polyps which worked upon that foundation of a 

 state were identical with those now laboring to extend the 

 area of American freedom. It appears, therefore, that the 

 same processes which have resulted in the formation of 

 that peninsula are still extending it southward. The time 

 can not be infinitely remote when the " ever blessed isle" 



