THE WORK OF THE "ALBATROSS" 247 



The dynamiting work is, perhaps, the most fascinating of the col- 

 lecting activities of the Albatross. Through the small, square, pane of 

 the water glass, one sees the rough and jagged ledge of coral, gray or 

 brown in the background, with encrusting forms of blue, purple, sea- 

 green, brown, orange and varying shades of red and pink. The ledge 

 is shattered and honeycombed into an intricate maze of crevices and 

 pinnacles — a broken and rugged floor mottled with irregular patches of 

 color. Huge masses of fluffy, gray soft-coral are mingled with beds of 

 crinoids moving their long, chrysanthemum-like arms to and fro with 

 the ground motion of the swell. Points of rock protrude among these 

 uneven garden plots or are partially hidden by the waving masses of 

 hydroids. Here, a delicate sea-fan stands erect upon a rocky corner; a 

 spotted crab runs from one hiding place to another; and a great, blue 

 starfish sprawls over a bare rock. There, a sea-cucumber, like a stout 

 serpent, halts in the middle of a patch of sand; and among the rocks 

 rest the giant clams with their wide open velvety mouths. A cluster of 

 little anemones gaze upward in astonishment, and a sea-urchin huddles 

 into a crack, like a porcupine searching for grubs among logs. 



The coral usually grows out from the shore as a fringing reef, often 

 forming a table or a coral shelf with only a few feet of water above it, 

 and ending abruptly in a coral cliff. There are found the most 

 luxuriant growths, as the bottom rapidly recedes from a depth of one 

 or two fathoms to a depth of ten or fifteen fathoms, beyond which the 

 eye, aided even with the water glass and the brightest sunlight, can not 

 penetrate. These are the reefs of solid coral formation. 



Around other islands, the coral is merely an incrustation on the 

 rocky ledges which form the island. Occasionally a locality is found 

 like that of the volcanic island of Kagayan Sulu, where the coral which 

 once flourished has been killed, possibly by some change in the ocean 

 currents or by a volcanic uplift of the island. The finer structures have 

 been worn away and the bases of the clumps of coral stone are now cov- 

 ered with the slime of a fine, brown alga. 



The next reef visited may be farther up the bay and bear a char- 

 acter very different from that of the reefs on the exposed points. Huge, 

 goblet-shaped sponges of a living gray color stand up motionless on their 

 thick stalks between great tables of spiny coral borne on pedestals, each 

 little spine on these tables looking like one of the trees on a wide, pine- 

 forested plateau. Beautiful brown plate corals and shelf corals hang 

 along the walls of the ledges. 



Another type of coral, growing sparsely over a sandy bed, may be 

 the last representative of the coral animal to be found well inside the 

 bay. The growth consists of hedges and patches of the diffuse and 

 intricate tangle of branching, stag-horn corals. Scattered among the 

 brown sea-grasses between these hedges which parallel the shore are 



