THE UNIVERSAL FAMILY PAPER FOR INTER-COMMUNICATIONS ON 



Conducted by WILLIAM KIDB, of Hammersmith,— 



Author of the Familiar and Popular Essays on "Natural History;" "British Song 

 Birds;" "Birds of Passage;" "Instinct and Reason;" "Tiic Aviary," &g. 



"the OBJECT OF OUR AVORK is to make men WISER, without obliging them to turn over folios and 



QUARTOS.— TO FURNISH MATTER FOR THINKING AS WELL AS READING."— EVELYN. 



No. 32.— 1852. 



SATURDAY, AUGUST 7. 



Price 3d. 



Or, in Monthly Parts, Price Is. Id. 



STARTLING WONDERS OF THE DEEP. 



THE WHITE CORAL. 



We have all, no doubt, heard of the 

 Coral Islands. Some minute particulars, 

 in a popular form, of what they really are, 

 and how formed, — will therefore, we feel 

 sure, be very acceptable to our readers in 

 general. We have gleaned the facts from 

 " Kirby's Habits and Instincts/' and other 

 sources. 



Whoever examines a fragment of the 

 polypary of any of the varieties of white 

 coral, Avill find it to consist of innumerable 

 radiating tubes, variously intercepted, all of 

 which appear to issue from a common base ; 

 these are the receptacles of the general body 

 of the polype, while the connected indi- 

 viduals with their blossoms inhabit an in- 

 finity of cells opening externally, from 

 which the tentacles issue to collect their 

 food. 



The seemingly insignificant creatures here 

 described, and which seem as little anima- 

 lised as any animal can be to retain a right 

 to the name, all whose means of action are 

 confined to their tentacles, and whose sole 

 employment appears to be the collection and 

 absorption of the beings that form their 

 food, are employed by their Creator to con- 

 struct and rear mighty fabrics in the bosom 

 of the deep. He has so organised them, 

 that from their food and the waters of the 

 ocean, which by a constant expansion and 

 contraction they absorb and expel, they are 

 enabled to separate, or elaborate, calcareous 

 particles with which they build up, and are 

 continually enlarging, their structures ; 

 forming them into innumerable cells, each 

 inhabited by an individual animal, which 

 however is not insulated and separated from 

 the parent body, but forms a part of a 

 many-headed and many- mouthed monster, 

 which, at every oral orifice, is collecting the 

 means of still increasing its coral palace ; and 

 thus it goes on till it has formed a habita- 



tion, not for itself, but for man, in the midst 

 of the world of waters. 



One of their most celebrated historians, 

 Lamoureux, thus expresses himself upon this 

 part of their history. " Some, by their 

 union or aggregation, form a long narrow 

 ridge or reef, which extends uninterruptedly 

 several degrees, opposing an immovable 

 rampart to the great currents of the sea, 

 which it often traverses, and the solidity and 

 magnitude of which increases daily. Some- 

 times this line of madreporic rocks assumes 

 a circular form ; the polypes that inhabit it 

 gradually elevate their rocky dwelling to the 

 surface of the sea ; working then in a shel- 

 tered basin, they by little and little fill up 

 its voids, taking the precaution, however, to 

 leave in the upper part of this impenetrable 

 wall openings by which the water can enter 

 and retire, so as to renew itself, and furnish 

 them with a constant supply of their ali- 

 ment, and of the material with which they 

 erect their habitation." 



They do not always elevate their poly- 

 paries from the depths of the waters to their 

 surface ; some extend themselves horizon- 

 tally upon the bottom of the sea, following- 

 its curvatures, declivities, and anfractuo- 

 sities, and cover the soil of old ocean with 

 an enamelled carpet of various and brilliant 

 colors, sometimes of a single color as 

 dazzling as the purple of the ancients. Many 

 of these beings are like a tree which winter 

 has stripped of its leave-, but which the 

 spring adorns with new flowers ; and they 

 strike the beholder by the eclat of petal-like 

 animals, with which their branches are 

 covered from the base to the extremity. 



Captain Beechey has given a most inter- 

 esting account of the proceeding and pro- 

 gress of these animals in erecting these 

 mighty works, and of the manner in which 

 the sea forms ridges, when the animals have 

 carried their work as high as they can : 

 upon these at length a soil is formed beyond 

 the reach of its waves ; a vegetation next 

 commences, in time plants and trees spring 



Vol. II. 



