SUBMARINE MASONRY. 
85 
have increased tlieir extent. The buttresses by which they strengthen 
their work at the bottom of the sea being prolonged and elevated, 
expand into banks, which link the isles to each other over an immense 
area. Along the line of burning life, in the tropic zone, these inde¬ 
fatigable builders have daringly intersected the sea and worked athwart 
its currents, and already are arresting the courses of our navigators. 
New Caledonia is now surrounded by a reef of 145 leagues in length. 
The chain of the Maidive Islands measures 480 English miles. To the 
east of New Holland stretches a bank of polypes over 360 leagues, 127 
of these without interruption. Finally, in the Pacific Ocean the mass 
known as the Dangerous Archipelago is about 400 leagues in length by 
150 in breadth. 
If they continue after this fashion, incessantly connecting their 
various piles of submarine masonry, they will perhaps realize the pro¬ 
phecy of Kirby, who discerned in the coral isles and reefs the possibility 
of a new world—a brilliant and fertile world; and in the course of 
centuries may accomplish the formation of a causeway, an immense 
bridge, connecting Asia with America. 
