626 THE WONDERS OF GEOLOGY. Lect. VI. 



their progeny spreads successive accumulations of calcareous 

 matter. 



26. Appearance of the living corals. — In some 

 parts of the sea, the eye perceives nothing but a bright 

 sandy plain at the bottom, extending for many hundred 

 miles ; but in the Red Sea, the whole bed of this extensive 

 basin of water is absolutely a forest of submarine plants and 

 corals. Here are sponges, gorgonias, madrepores, fungiae, 

 and other polyparia, with fuci, algae, and all the variety of 

 marine vegetation, covering every part of the bottom, and 

 presenting the appearance of a submarine garden of the 

 most exquisite verdure, enamelled with animal forms, 

 resembling, and even surpassing in splendid and gorgeous 

 colouring, the parterres of the East. 



Ehrenberg, the distinguished German naturalist, whose 

 labours have so greatly advanced our knowledge of the 

 Infusoria, was so struck w T ith the magnificent spectacle 

 presented by the living corals in the Red Sea, that he 

 exclaimed with enthusiasm, " Where is the paradise of 

 flowers that can rival in variety and beauty these living 

 wonders of the ocean ?" Some have compared the appear- 

 ance to beds of tulips or dahlias ; and, in truth, the large 

 fungise, with their crimson disks, and purple and yellow 

 tentacula, bear no slight resemblance to the latter. 



The impressions produced upon first seeing a grove of 

 live corals, are thus vividly portrayed by Mr. Jukes :* — 



" In a small bight of the inner edge of the coral reef, was a sheltered 

 nook, where the extreme slope was well exposed, and where every coral 

 was in full life and luxuriance. Smooth round masses of meandrinaB 

 and astrese were contrasted with delicate, leaf-like, and cup-shaped 

 expansions of explanaria?, and with an infinite variety of branching 

 niadrcporce, some with mere finger-shaped projections, others with 



* " Narrative of the Surveying Voyage of* ELM. S. Fly, in 1842— 

 18-AG;" by J. B. Jukes, Esq., Naturalist of the Expedition. 



