NAUTRAL HISTORY of NORWAY, 157 



driven towards Iceland, this is fo long a voyage, that the beans 

 would infallibly putrify, or at leaft be damaged before their ar- 

 rival, which however is not the cafe, the tafte being, as is al- 

 ready obferved, exadtly that of the French-bean, without the leaft 

 mixture of the faline property. An account of this exceeds my 

 compreheniion, but it is fo with the fea-trees themfelves, or with 

 their fhoots and buds, which may be looked upon as their leaves. 

 They are quite infipid, tho', till dried, not without fmell. Con- 

 cerning thefe fea-beans, I fhall further add, that the famous Han- In Mundo 



,. ° . r . , . . , n " Mural. T.i. 



pelius mentions lome marine berries without tafte, orowino- Lib.iii.cap.6. 

 on thofe weeds, which the Spaniards call Sargaho, and the 

 Dutch, fea-pariley, with which the fea near Cape Verde is over- 

 grown for feveral miles. 



SECT. IV. 



From the defcription of the above marine vegetables, or trees, Northern go- 

 eipecially the pieces four, five, and fix, they may be premature"'' 

 corals, the confequence of their inward and outward parts beino- 

 fuch, that the principal or only difference lies in the want of hard- 

 nefs. If I could be convinced that the corals are not originally 

 hard, but gradually become fo, by a kind of petrefa&ion, I alfo 

 mould fubfcribe to that conjeclure, but what fufpends my affent 

 is *, that among the northern corals, fome plants, which from their 

 fmallnefs may be judged to be young, yet in their flrft vegetation 

 feem of a compleat hardnefs. This is confirmed by Pelfchoor,T y rocm.chv» 

 who fays, « That the divers, who have been among the coral 7^ h {"s' 

 bufhes under water, found none foft, but of the like hardnefs as 

 afterwards." Thus it is not the air which indurates them as 

 O. Wormius imagines : Soliditatem demum debitam, ab aere am- i n Mufef. P . 

 biente acquirit. This from the two following verfes, appears to 231 ' 

 have been alfo the opinion in the times of Ovid. 



Sic et corallium, quo primum contingit auras, 

 Tempore durefcit : mollis fuit herba fub undis. 



Metam. Lib. xv. 



t -t fr Thomas Brown in his Pfeudodoxia, or Enquiries into Vulvar Errors 

 Lib. 11 cap v. p. 72, where he juflly rejedts the opinion of corals hardening after* 

 being brought into the air, yet believes that the faline petrific fpirit in the water 

 does not at the fame time operate univerfally on all the parts of a plant. All coral 

 woS? m many COnCreted P Iants > fome P arts remain unpetrified as 



Among 



