NATURAL HISTORY OF AFRICA. 471 
The Cyprea moneta, or money cowry, is a well 
know species of shell, employed by the natives in 
commerce, instead of money, about 2000 of them 
being esteemed equal in value to a rupee. It is a 
native of the Indian and Adriatic seas, 
VI. — Zoophytes. 
Zoophytes, although the lowest in the scale of 
animated beings, yet are highly interesting in the 
grand and sublime plan of creation. Their num- 
bers exceed all calculation — the minuteness of 
many species is such, that they are not to be dis- 
criminated by the aid of our most powerful mi- 
croscopes — they form one extremity of the zoolo- 
gical scale of magnitude, of which the other is occu- 
pied with the gigantic whale of the polar regions. 
The coral reefs, rocks, and islands of the tropical 
seas, are formed by very minute zoophytes. These 
reefs, in some regions of the earth, have been tra- 
ced for a thousand miles in length, forty or fifty 
miles in breadth, and to depths sometimes unfa- 
thomable ; yet they are the work of the most minute 
animals in the creation. We find, too, whole beds 
of rocks, even entire hills of very old formation, 
extending for hundreds of miles, characterized by 
the corals they contain, thus proving, that these 
animals also existed in countless numbers in a for- 
mer condition of our earth, and that then, as at 
present, they assisted materially in adding to the 
