SUBMARINE CORAL BANKS 293 



abyssal species are new to science, though several of 

 them are very closely related to some of the fossil 

 forms described by Seguenza from the Tertiary rocks 

 of Sicily and southern Italy. Of those which are not 

 new, at least two, namely, Caryophyllia communis, 

 Seguenza and Flabellum laciniatum, Philippi, were 

 inhabitants of the Tertiary Mediterranean, and still 

 flourish in the Atlantic. 



The majority of the deep-sea corals are simple — 

 that is to say, do not form colonies by budding — and 

 are of strikingly large size, one species {^Flabellum 

 japonicum^ Moseley) growing as big as a coffee-cup. 

 Some of them, however, are compound branching 

 forms, which must, at times, in certain places, grow 

 luxuriantly enough to give rise to veritable submarine 

 reefs. Thus on the abyssal slope of the Travancore 

 coast, at a depth of 430 fathoms, Dr A. R. Anderson, 

 sometime an Investigator naturalist, dredged nearly 

 half a ton of Solenosmilia, Lophohelia, Desmophyllum, 

 and Caryophyllia at one tremendous haul. Even the 

 simple corals, which do not branch, seem sometimes 

 to be so prolific as to lead to the formation of abyssal 

 sheets of limestone rock ; for on one occasion, in the 

 Laccadive Sea, the dredge, though it was on the 

 bottom less than three hours, brought up from 1000 

 fathoms over 200 specimens of Caryophyllia ambrosia 

 (Fig. 91), a large and very beautiful species with a 

 dense and compact corallum : the same species was 



