COR 
COR 
e o r 
m the hemp and netting. For this purpose, 
six boats are sometimes required ; and if in 
hauling in, the rope happens to break, the 
fishermen run the hazard of being lost. Be- 
fore the fishers go to sea, they agree for the 
price of the coral ; which is sometimes more, 
sometimes less, a pound ; and they engage, on 
pain of corporal punishment, that neither 
they nor their crew shall embezzle any, but de- 
liver the whole to the proprietors. When the 
fishery is ended, which amounts one year with 
another to twenty-live quintals for each boat, 
it is divided into thirteen parts, of which 
the proprietor has four, the caster two, and 
the other six men one each : the thirteenth be- 
longs to the company for payment of the 
boat furnished them. Red or white coral in 
fragments, for physic, pays on importation 
7£a. the pound, and draws back on expor- 
tation 6^:1. Whole coral unpolished, the 
pound, pays 3s. 1 0 \d. and draws back Is. A±d. 
Whole coral polished, the pound, pays 5s. 
1 \d. and draws back 4s. 7 ±:l. 
CORALLINA, or coral, in zoology, a 
genus belonging to the order of vermes zoo- 
phyta. The trunk is radicated, jointed, and 
calcareous. I he species are distinguished 
by the form of their branches, and are found 
in the ocean adhering to stones, bones, shells, 
&c. The corals were formerly believed to be 
vegetable substances hardened by the air ; but 
are now known to be composed of a congeries 
of animals, which are even endued with the 
faculty of moving spontaneously. The 
islands in the South-sea are mostly coral rocks 
covered over with earth. The little crea- 
tures, which have scarcely sensation enough 
to distinguish them from plants, build up a 
rocky structure from the bottom of that sea, 
too deep to be measured by human art, 
till it reaches the surface. Some of the co- 
ralline islands appear to be of a much older 
Bate than others ; particularly the Friendly 
Islands: aud it is probable that, as these sub- 
marine works are continually going on, new 
islands may by that means frequently be pro- 
duced. M. de Peyssonel of Marseilles, in 
consequence of a series of experiments and 
observations from about the year 1720 to 
1750, seems to have been the first who threw 
a proper light upon the nature and produc- 
tions of coral and similar marine substances. 
Those bodies which the count de Marsigli 
imagined to be flowers, this ingenious na- 
turalist discovered to be insects inhabiting the 
coral ; for upon taking branches of it out 
of the water, the flowers, which proceeded 
from a number of white points answering to 
the holes that pierced the bark, and the ra- 
diation of which resembled the flower of the 
olive-tree, entered into the bark, and disap- 
peared: but upon being again restored to the 
water, they were some hours after perceptible. 
These flowers spread on white paper lost 
their transparency, and became red as they r 
dried. The holes in the bark correspond to 
small cavities upon the substance of the coral ; 
-and when the bark is removed there may be 
seen an infinite quantity of little tubes connect- 
ing the bark with the inner substance, besides 
a great number of small glands adhering to 
them ; and from these tubes and glands the 
milky juice of coral issues forth : the holes in 
the bark are the openings through which the 
insects that form these substances for their 
habitation come forth: and those cavities 
which are partly in the bark, and partly in 
the substance, are the cells which they inhabit. 
The organs of the animal are contained in 
the tubes, and the glandules are the extre- 
mities of its feet ; and the milky liquor is the 
blood and juice of the animal, which are 
more or less abundant in proportion to its 
health and vigour. When the insects are 
dead, they corrupt, and communicate to the 
water the smell of putrid fish. The juice or 
liquor runs along the furrows perceived upon 
the proper substance or body of coral, and stop- 
ping by little and little becomes fixed, and hard, 
and is changed into stone ; and being stopped 
in the bark, causes the coral to increase pro- 
portionably and in every direction. In 
forming coral, and other marine productions 
of this class, the animal labours like those of 
the testaceous kind, each according to his 
species ; and their productions vary accord- 
ing to their several forms, magnitudes, and 
colours. 
The coral insect, or polype, expands itself 
in water, and contracts itself in air, or when 
it is touched with the hand in water, or acid 
liquors are poured upon it: and he actually 
saw these insects move their claws or legs, 
and expand themselves, when the sea-water 
containing coral was placed near the lire, 
and keep them in their expanded state when 
separated from the coral in boiling water. 
Broken branches of coral have been observed 
to -fasten themselves to other branches, and 
have continued to grow ; and this is the case 
when they are connected with detached 
pieces of rock and other substances, from 
which no nourishment could be derived. 
The coral insects in their cells, not having 
been injured, continue their operations ; and 
as they draw no nourishment from the stone 
of the coral, they are able to increase in a de- 
tached and separate state. Coral was found 
to be equally red in the sea as out of it ; and 
it was more shining when just taken out of the 
water than even when it is polished ; and the 
bark by being dried becomes somewhat 
pale. It grows in different directions, some- 
times perpendicularly downwards, some- 
times horizontally, and sometimes upwards ; 
and in the caverns of the sea, open to every 
exposure. 
M. Donati of Turin has also adopted the 
same hypothesis, viz. that coral is a mass of 
animals of the polype kind; and instead of 
representing the coral beds and cells which 
contain (hem as the work of polypes, he thinks 
it more just to say, that coral and other co- 
ralline bodies have the same relation to the 
polypes united to them, that there is between 
the shell of a snail and the snail itself, or 
the bones of an animal and the animal itself. 
There are properly but three kinds of 
coral ; red, white, and black : the black is the 
rarest and most esteemed ; but the red was 
formerly in great repute as a medicine. 
When coral is newly taken up out of the sea, 
the small protuberances on its surface are soft, 
and yield, on being pressed, a milky juice 
which effervesces with acids. The cortical 
part with which the coral is all over covered 
is not near so compact as the internal, and 
may be easily taken off whilst fresh ; and 
from this part it is usually freed before if 
comes to the market. The greatest coral 
trade is in Genoa and Leghorn. See Plate 
Nat. Hist. fig. 143. 
CORALLINES, in natural history, were 
3 I 2 
4,15 
formerly reckoned a genus of plants, and 
Mr. Tournefort enumerates 30 species of 
them ; but in the Linnaan system they be- 
long to the class zoophytes, and are defined 
by modern naturalists to be submarine giant- 
like bodies, that consist of many slender finely 
divided and jointed branches, resembling 
some species of moss ; or animals growing in 
the form of plants, having their steins fixed 
to of her bodies: these stems are composed of 
capillary tubes, whose extremities pass 
through a calcareous crust, and open into 
pores on the surface. The branches are of- 
ten jointed, and always subdivided into 
smaller branches which are either loose and 
unconnected, or joined as if they were glued 
together. They are distinguished from 
plants by their texture and hardness : they 
also yield in distillation a considerable quan- 
tity of volatile salt ; and their smell, in burn- 
ing, resembles that of burnt horns and other 
animal substances. Many of the corallines 
seem to consist of a single tube, containing 
a single parent animal. Every branch emit- 
ted contains an offspring of this parent depen- 
dant upon it, and yet capable of producing 
its like in the emission of anew branch. Others 
consist of many such tubes united, rising 
together, and encircling the deserted tubes of 
their progenitors, whose exuvia: become the 
substratum ofa rising generation. Mr. Ellis 
distributes corallines into the vesiculated, tu- 
bular, celliferous, and articulated kinds. 
Vesiculated corallines are distinguished by 
their horny hollow ramifications: most of 
them are furnished with little denticles on 
their branches, like leaves on mosses ; and at 
certain seasons of the year they are furnished 
with small bodies like bladders, proceeding 
from their stems and branches, and differing in 
form according to the different species. 
Their colour, when dry, is of a yellowish or 
pale brown, and their nature is elastic. They 
are found adhering to rocks, shells, and fo- 
cuses, by small root-like tubes : they recover 
their form in water, after having been dried; 
and when put into vinegar, they cause u<* 
effervescence. See Plate fig. 1, where a re- 
presents the sea-tamarisk in its natural size, 
and A the denticles considerably magnified. 
Fig. 2. b, B, are the sea-cypress: fig, 3. cd, 
C D, the small climbing coralline with well- 
shaped cups. 
Tubular corallines are composed of a num- 
ber of simple tubes, growing up nearly toge- 
ther ; or of such branched ones as have nei- 
ther denticles nor vesicles. These are horny 
and elastic like the former, and recover their 
original form in water. Some of them ap- 
pear wrinkled like the windpipe, and others 
like the intestines of small animals. See E, 
fig. 4. 
Celliferous corallines are those which ap- 
pear, when magnified, to be fine thin cells, 
the habitations of small animals connected to- 
gether, and disposed in a variety of elegant 
forms like branches. These effervesce with 
acids. See fig. 5. F, f, with a part (G il) 
magnified. 
Articulated corallines consist of short pieces 
of a stony or cretaceous brittle matter, whose 
surface is covered with pores or cells which 
are joined by a tough, membranous, flexible 
substance, composed of many small tubes of 
the like nature compacted together. The 
stony part is soluble in vinegar, and the other 
part remains entire. Fig. 6 is the coralline 
