286 TRAVELS IN THE EAST EKDIAK AKCEIPELAGO. 



smfaces are iLOiizontal and tlieir upper sides sliglitly 

 convex. Wlien the soft parts are removed, a num- 

 ber of radiating pai'titions are seen, so tliat the 

 whole resembles a gigantic mushroom turned upside 

 down ; and this family of polyps is hence called 

 Fmujidw. Scattered among the stone corals are 

 many Gm^gmms. Some are much like bi*oad sheets 

 of foliage and similai' to those known to us as " sea- 

 fans,*' which generally come ft'om the tropical waters 

 among our West Indies. Others resemble bundles 

 of rattans ; and, when the soft polyps are taken off, 

 a black horn-like axis stick is left. Others, wheu 

 taken out of the sea and dried, look like limbs 

 cut from a small spruce-tree after it has been dried, 

 and lost hundreds of its small needle-like leaves. Num- 

 bers of 8ix)nges are also seen, mostly of a spherical 

 form, with many ramifying ducts or tubes. But the 

 most accurate description possible must fail to con- 

 vey any proper idea of the beauty and richness of 

 these gardens beneath the sea, because, in reading or 

 hearing a description, the various forms that are dis- 

 tinctly seen at a single glance have to be mentioned 

 one after another, and thus they pass along in a se- 

 ries or line before our mental ^dsion, instead of being 

 grouped into circular ai-eas, where the charm consists 

 not so much in the wonderful perfection of a few 

 separate parts, as in the hfuinonious relations, or, as 

 architects say, the eftect of the whole. The pleasXire 

 of viewing coral reefs never becomes wearisome, 

 because the grouping is always new. No two places 

 are just alike beneath all the wide sea, and no one 

 can fail to be thrilled with pleasm'e, when, after a 



