Sect. III. 
REEF-BUILDING CORALS LIVE. 
117 
NAME OP ZOOPHYTE. 
Depth 
in 
fathom 
COUNTRY AND 
S. LATITUDE. 
Millepora, a strong coral with\ 
cylindrical branches, of a 
pink colour, about two 1 
inches high, resembling in 
the form of its orifices M. 
aspera of Lamarck 
94 
and 
30 
E. Chiloe 43° 
Tierra del 
Fuego 53° 
Coralium .... 
120 
Barbary 33° N. 
Antipathes .... 
16 
Chonos 45° 
Gorgonia (or an allied form) . 
160 
( Abrolhos, on 
•1 the coast oi 
( Brazil, 18° 
AUTHORITY. 
(Peyssonel, in 
I paper read to 
j Royal Society 
(May, 1752. 
I Capt. Beechey 
informed me 
of this fact 
I in a letter. 
those corals and corallines which we have no reason to suppose ever 
materially aid in the construction of a reef. Mr. Stokes also showed 
me a Caryophyllia which was dredged up alive by Captain King 
from a depth of 80 fathoms off Juan Fernandez, in lat. 33° S. Ellis 
(Nat. Hist, of Coralline, p. 96) states that Ombellularia was pro- 
cured in lat. 79° N. sticking to a line from the depth of 236 fathoms ; 
hence this coral either must have been floating loose, or was en- 
tangled in a stray line at the bottom. Off Keeling atoll a compound 
Ascidia (Sigillina) was brought up from 39 fathoms, and a piece of 
sponge, apparently living, from 70, and a fragment of Nullipora, 
also apparently living, from 92 fathoms. At a greater depth than 
90 fathoms the bottom was thickly strewed with joints of a Halimeda 
and small fragments of other Nullipone, but all dead. Captain B. 
Allen, R.N., informs me that in the survey of the West Indies it was 
noticed, that between the depth of 10 and 200 fathoms, the sounding- 
lead very generally came up coated with the dead joints of a Hali- 
meda, of which he showed me specimens. Olf Pernambuco, in 
Brazil, in about 12 fathoms, the bottom was covered with fragments, 
dead and alive, of a dull red Nullipora, and I infer from Roussin’s 
chart, that a bottom of this kind extends over a wide area. On the 
beach, within the coral-reefs of Mauritius, vast quantities of frag- 
ments of Nulliporae were piled up. From these facts, it appears that 
these simply organised bodies, belonging to the vegetable kingdom, 
are amongst the most abundant productions of the sea. [Of late years 
corals, commonly solitary, have been found at much greater depths 
