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, exactly that of the French-bean, without the leaft 

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

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

 their moots 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 Hap- JjjJMu n<to 

 pelius mentions fome marine berries without tafte, growing Libiiica P- 6 - 

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

 Dutch, fea-parfiey, 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 c<* 

 efpecially the pieces four, five, and fix, they may be premature 

 corals, the confequence of their inward and outward parts being 

 fiich, 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 petrefadion, I alfo 

 mould fubfcribe to that conjedure, but what fufpends my aflent 

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

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

 feem of a compleat hardnefs. This is confirmed by Pelfchoor,Tyrodn.cfcy- 

 who fays, " That the divers, who have been among the coral cap.x.p. 153! 

 bullies 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- in Mufef. P , 

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

 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. 



* Sir Thomas Brown in his Pfeudodoxia, or Enquiries into Vulgar Errors 

 Lib. II. cap. v. p. 72, where he juftly rejects 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 

 is not hard, and in many concreted plants, fome parts remain unpetrified as 

 wood. 



Among 



231. 



