96 
RATE OF GROWTH. 
Ch. IV. 
layer from one to two feet in thickness, or at most to 
a fathom and a-half ; and he disbelieves that, in any 
case, they form by their own proper growth great 
masses, stratum over stratum. A nearly similar ob- 
servation has been made by MM. Quoy and Gaimard , 1 
with respect to the thickness of some upraised beds of 
coral, which they examined at Timor and some other 
places. Ehrenberg 2 saw certain large massive corals 
in the Eed Sea, which he imagines to be of such vast 
antiquity, that they might have been beheld by 
Pharaoh; and according to Sir C. Lyell 3 there are 
certain corals at Bermuda, which are known by tra- 
dition to have been living for centuries . 4 To show 
how slowly coral-reefs grow upwards, Captain Beechey 5 
has adduced the case of the Dolphin Beef off Tahiti, 
which has remained at the same depth beneath the 
surface, namely, about two fathoms and a-half, for a 
period of sixty-seven years. There are reefs in the 
Bed Sea, which certainly do not appear 6 to have in- 
1 Annales des Sciences Nat., tom. vi. p. 28. 
2 Ehrenberg, ut sup. p. 42. 
s Lyell’s Principles of Geology, book iii. ch. xviii. 
4 Since the preceding pages (of the first edit.) have been printed 
off, I have received from Sir C. Lyell an interesting pamphlet, en- 
titled Remarks upon Coral-Formations, &c., by J. Couthouy, Boston, 
United States, 1842. A statement (p. 6) is here given on the autho- 
rity of the Rev. J. Williams, corroborating the above remarks on the 
antiquity of certain individual corals, namely, that at Upolu, one of 
the Navigator islands, ‘particular clumps of coral are known to the 
fishermen by name, derived from either some particular configuration 
or tradition attached to them, and handed down from time imme- 
morial.’ 
5 Beechey’s Voyage to the Pacific, ch. viiL 
8 Ehrenberg, ut sup. p, 43. 
