174 TRANSACTIONS OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
first line of defence at sea; but the question was painfully forced 
upon us to-day by our chief naval experts as to our fitness to hold 
our own. When three of our chief admirals protest that our 
navy is in as bad a state as it can possibly be, and that we could 
not take the initiative successfully in a war with a naval Power 
like France, it would seem as though a period of infatuation had 
overtaken all our officials concerned in administering the navy. 
The lecturer referred to Admiral Symonds's suggestion as to 
building an additional breakwater outside Plymouth, as the place 
is now too shallow, and would act as a trap ; and also to the 
Admiral's suggestion for the construction of four large docks at 
Devonport, and to Lord Alcester's appeal for a large number of 
cruisers in order to preserve our commerce and imperative food 
supply in the event of war. He also referred to the defenceless 
state of our coast ports, excepting the naval arsenals, and pointed 
to the threats of foreign officers that they would endeavour to 
extort heavy ransom from our commercial ports, from which there 
would be no escape if our Channel squadron received a reverse or 
simply a check. In conclusion, the lecturer remarked that if the 
lessons of history were to be of any value, we should seek to 
apply their warnings, where possible, to our own times, and should 
see that we were prepared in every way to meet an attack at sea, 
a contingency which might arise at any time, and the issues of 
which must be of more serious importance to England than to 
any other Power in the world. 
COEAL BEEFS. 
SYLLABUS OF LECTURE BY G. C. BOURNE, M.A., F.L.S. 
(Read 29th November, 1888.) 
Various kinds of coral reefs. Fringing and barrier reefs and 
atolls. Their distribution within the tropics. Their dependence 
on the temperature of sea water. General characteristics of an 
atoll : that of Diego Garcia in the Chagos group taken as an 
example. The characters of the land composing it. The lagoon 
and its depth ; the surrounding sea and its depth. Similarity of 
