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are subjected in the deep waters to a pressure of from 4 to 5 

 tons on the square inch, there is no unequal pressure on any 

 part, the pressure being equally apportioned through the 

 tissues of the living structure. 



The student who imagines that the rigid geometrical 

 problems he wearies his brain to solve are of man's inven- 

 tion — original problems of figures formed on a plane, straight 

 lines, curves and cones — the painter who ascribes to the 

 masters and draughtsmen of the old schools, the charming 

 line drawings he finds so difficult to reproduce — will discover 

 in nature's handicraft the original line artist. 



To nature's school must the student go to learn the 

 "undulatory theory of light " and " finite differences," to 

 feel the influence of the hand that outlines the exquisite 

 curves and colouring of a butterfly's wing, the iridescence 

 on the wings of the flying fish as it rises ahead of the 

 advancing ship, to get the inwardness of geometrical lines 

 from the fish that comes readily to the bait, or from the 

 cone, harp, nautilus, or spiral shell in the museums. 



From the corals too, the master builders in the sea 

 depths of gorgeous palaces, cloud-capped minarets seemingly 

 in the sunlight as you approach them, white, glistening, 

 petrified forests. Silence is profound on some of these 

 atolls, with no charm of earliest bird, or the voice of man, 

 no sign of herb, fruit or flower, on these, the beginnings of 

 the islands of the ocean. 



I have not time here to give a description of the larger 

 coral formations which come under the name of atolls and 

 barrier reefs, it would require a paper devoted to the subject. 

 Many theories have been advanced since the early days of 

 the 19th Century, to explain the nature of these atoll 

 growths, which rise from the water in cup formation, the 

 accumulations extending from the size of the specimens we 

 see in museums, to that of islets and inhabited islands in the 

 Pacific and warm seas. The shape of the atoll retains the 

 hollowed ring appearance and characteristic. There are 

 coral islands of this nature covering a length of 90 miles 

 and 10 miles broad, the breadth of the annular reef being 

 quite a quarter of a mile. 



When the surface of the water has been reached the 

 polyps cease to grow. The work of the tiny builder is 

 complete. 



