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Allan's magnificent collection by shipwreck, unfortunately prevents its being known to what genera these corals belonged; but from the numbers experimented on, it is certain that all the more conspicuous kinds must have been included. Dr. Allan informs me, in a letter, that he believes it was a Madrepora, which grew most vigorously.
My shape has been a struggle, but it was worth while. I, my dear, have held Youth so tight that he has almost choked to death, but held him I have. You cannot deny it. Look at me, Jane Carew, and tell me if, judging by my looks, you can reasonably state that I have no longer the right to wear corals." Jane Carew looked. She smiled the Carew smile.
There were bunches of scarlet feathers, two or three hundred in number, from the tail of the tropic bird, which are only allowed to be possessed and worn by chiefs, and which are of great value, as each bird produces only two feathers; pearl shells, with corals growing on them, red coral from the islands on the Equator, curious sponges and sea-weed, tapa cloth and reva-reva fringe, arrowroot and palm-leaf hats, cocoa-nut drinking vessels, fine mats plaited in many patterns, and other specimens of the products of the island.
"How beautiful the corals are look here, they grow like little trees under the water, and look here, here is really a flower in bloom growing on that rock just below the water." "Put your finger to it, Master William," said Ready. William did so, and the flower, as he called it, immediately shut up. "Why, it's flesh, and alive!"
The protruding glands, the warts, the curving backs, take on the colorings of jewelry. But the precious stones of earth are dead minerals that need rays of light in order to emit the slightest flash. The animated gems of the ocean fishes and corals sparkle with their own colors that are a reflex of their vitality.
The microscope shows that it consists of the imperishable part of creatures, tinier than any you can imagine, which had the power when living of extracting from the sea-water as I told you is the way of the corals the lime which formed their outer coat, or skeleton.
Then there are coral islands in the Pacific Ocean, whole platforms of solid coral which shut in portions of quiet water in some places. The little corals themselves do not work in deep water, nor above the surface of the sea. But the bony substance spreads and spreads, up, down, and across the sea.
From the facts given in this section, it may be concluded, first, that considerable thicknesses of rock have certainly been formed within the present geological area by the growth of coral and the accumulation of its detritus; and, secondly, that the increase of individual corals and of reefs, both outwards or horizontally and upwards or vertically, under the peculiar conditions favourable to such increase, is not slow, when referred either to the standard of the average oscillations of level in the earth's crust, or to the more precise but less important one of a cycle of years.
Little red spots were produced on the tender skin of the arm, which appeared as if they would have formed watery pustules, but did not. M. Quoy mentions this case of the Millepora; and I have heard of stinging corals in the West Indies.
The COELENTERATA. The Tabulate Corals have existed from the Silurian epoch to the present day, but I am not aware that the ancient Heliolites possesses a single mark of a more embryonic or less differentiated character, or less high organisation, than the existing Heliopora.
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