Some of the younger fponges, as that marked B, are of a fine pale yellow, th 
fibres tranflucid; and fmall Ms, ferpute, &c. are feen entire within the mats. 
Was any vegetable body ever found thus to entomb a pebble or the fhcll of a fnail . 
The tubes of the fponges, though interwrought and ramified in ten thoufand 
irregular ways, as at D, which is a magnified (lice of the fponge d, are all project^ 
in fine terminations, feparating from each other, as at F, which is part of the fpong 
A, highly magnified j and thefe thorny points, under the microfcope’s firft powers, 
are the union of many inofculating tubes, reprefented at G and H ; and the M 
like openings of A, as magnified at E J feem to be chambers contrived to give tft 
infant polypes play. 
The animated myriads of the deep are ever making encroachments on each other ; 
none dare be idle, or it mull quickly perilh. Every part of every ftone is covere 
with animal habitations ; thefe habitations inclofed with the abodes of others : th 
organs of life alone are left free.— Of all marine productions, fponges are thofe o 
whofe furface feweft incruftations are ever found : nothing but the infinite numbe 
of animals, which form and occupy them, could have faved the fponges, in tho 
living waters, from being utterly abolilhed. Had they not been all alive ere th 
firft century of the Creation was finilhed, their place could have been no w re 1 
found j at lead: they could not have remained the ornament of coral groves. 
Although this production has a living principle, which would difclofe its etW 
gies at every pore if we beheld them on their native rocks, yet is it not furpri in» 
that they fhould univerfally and invariably retreat, ere they can be brought un e 
the power of the microfcope. Thofe little beings, which form the finer colour > 
muft be exceedingly more robuft than they: yet all who are converfant with t e ^ 
marine bodies muft have felt with regret, how difficult it is to preferve them io 
ftate of activity but for an hour, even by the moft repeated changes of the v* 
round them, which feems an indifpenfable requifite to their continuance in health. 
But of thefe laft fome beautiful fpecimens ffiall be produced, exhibiting the hvM 
iprinciple and polypes, whereby they are actuated and formed ; and thefe per 
are the firft living corals which have been examined from thefe Ihores. 
