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Among these were four previously unknown species of mammiferous animals, forty-five of fishes, thirty of reptiles, besides rare kinds of molluscs, polypes, annelides, &c., &c. The rules of the French service required that Freycinet should be summoned before a council of war to answer for the loss of his ship.
Thus you see that every peculiarity and phenomenon of these different forms of coral reef was explained at once by the simplest of all possible suppositions, namely, by supposing that the land has gone down at a rate not greater than that at which the coral polypes have grown up.
On this they work; the polypes on the mountain top, of course, reach the surface first, then those at the outer edges reach the top sooner than the others between them and the centre, thus forming the coral reef surrounding the lagoon of water and the central island; after that the insects within the lagoon cease working.
Sea-urchins, star-fish, sea-eggs, combative gymnoti, polypes, struggle and thrive with ever-renewing change of color; gelatinous worms that shine like stars cling to every weed; glimmering animalcules, phosphorescent medusae, the very deep itself is vivid with sparkle and corruscation of electric fire.
But, sooner or later, the coral polypes, like all other things, die; the soft flesh decays, while the skeleton is left as a stony mass at the bottom of the sea, where it retains its integrity for a longer or a shorter time, according as its position affords more or less protection from the wear and tear of the waves.
They are then allowed to putrefy, in order to get rid of the animal matter, and the red coral is the skeleton that is left. In the case of the white coral, the skeleton is more complete. In the red coral, the skeleton belongs to the whole; in the white coral there is a special skeleton for every one of these polypes in addition to that for the whole body.
There are many other zoophytes besides the coral polypes, and all of them beautiful and curious. They all inhabit the fertile depths of the waters where God has deposited the first germs of life. I cannot describe them to you now. But to make amends, I will give you a piece of advice which will perhaps make some people stare.
As the infant polypes of the coral may retain this free and active condition for many hours, or even days, and as a tidal or other current in the sea may easily flow at the speed of two or even more miles in an hour, it is clear that the embryo must often be transported to very considerable distances from the parent.
Was it to the mollusks, from the cephalopodes to the bryozoans, that he had given his preference, and had malacology no more secrets for him? Not at all. Then it was on the radiates, echinoderms, acalephes, polypes, entozoons, sponges, and infusoria, that he had for such a long time burned the midnight oil? It must, indeed, be confessed that it was not on the radiates.
Outside that point you come to the natural sea bottom; but all inside that depth is coral, built up from the bottom by the accumulation of the skeletons of innumerable generations of coral polypes. So that you see the coral forms a very considerable rampart round the island.
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