CORAL.

Coral had been used many hundreds of years before men found out what it was. The savages used to fashion it into ornaments for their knife and axe handles; and, when men were more civilized, and had learned to work in iron, and to make armor, they liked to adorn their shields and helmets with coral. Women made of this beautiful red substance, necklaces for the neck, bracelets for the arms, and ornaments for the hair. But it is not likely that any of these savages or partially civilized people made any attempt to find out what kind of substance this coral was. They gathered it near the surface of the sea, and never stopped to think how it got there.

But when men became still more highly civilized they thought more deeply about things, and began to ask each other what caused day, and night; and heat, and cold; why the Moon grew from a little bright streak into the brilliant full orb, and a multitude of other questions. There was no one to answer these questions, and so the wisest men set to work to study it all out. They found out a great deal, but, of course they made a great many mistakes that had to be set right afterwards by other learned men.

Very early they made investigations into the nature of coral. For a long time they were sorely puzzled. In the first place they decided it was a mineral because it was so very hard, and took such a beautiful polish. But, after further examination the wise men all came to the conclusion that it was a plant.

It looked like a plant. There could be no doubt about that. The large specimens examined had trunks composed of layers or rings, very much like many trees. From this trunk were branches, covered with a rose-colored bark in which were some curious depressions.

FISHING FOR CORAL IN THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA.

Others made a still closer examination, and discovered that these depressions were really little star-shaped flowers, with several colored rays. This settled the question. Of course, if coral produced flowers it must be a plant; and, as a plant, it was spoken of, and written about for two thousand years.

“But,” it was asked, “how can a plant grow into a substance as hard as a stone? There is nothing else of such growth known in nature. It is impossible.”

The sailors and coral fishers answered this question by asserting that the coral was in a soft state under the water, like any other plant; but when it was exposed to the air it became petrified—that is, turned into stone. It would not have been a very difficult thing for the learned men to have investigated this matter, and tried for themselves whether it was soft and flexible under the water. But they never did, and sothatquestion was settled.

It was settled for twenty centuries. At the close of that long period of time a French physician, named Peyssonnel, while traveling along the Mediterranean coast, became much interested in the coral fisheries carried on there. He examined the coral flowers with great care, and found that they were not flowers at all, but animals! The ancients had been deceived by their flower-like form, for they were unlike flowers in every other respect, having no stamens, or pistils, or pollen, and producing no seed.

But the opinions of people were not to be overturned all at once by a country doctor. Was it reasonable to suppose he should know more about this matter than all the learned men who had ever lived, or who were living then? So everybody, but Peyssonnel himself, went on believing that coral was a plant, and bore flowers; that it grew in the sea like other marine plants; and that, when broken off, and brought to the surface, it suddenly hardened into stone.

Not long, however, did they continue in this belief. Nicolai, an Inspectorof coral fisheries, thought it was about time that an investigation should be made deep down in the ocean to see whether the coral there was flexible, and soft. He sent down one of his best divers, and the man brought back word that the coral was just as hard in the sea, as in the air. This was such surprising news that Nicolai went down himself to make sure of the fact. There was no doubt about it. The coral in the ocean was as hard as a stone.

CORAL.

For hundreds of years wise men had been accepting the statements of ignorant fishermen without investigation.

Further research into the subject proved Peyssonnel to be right. The little star-like ornaments on the coral branches are animals. We show here a section of a coral branch as it looks under a magnifying glass, that you may understand how easy it would be for an ordinary observer to suppose the little stars to be blossoms. You can also see the different stages of development of the very singular little coral animal. B is theovule, or egg, from which it comes, C thelarva, or young creature before it undergoes its last change, and A is the full-grown animal.

A BRANCH OF CORAL, MAGNIFIED.

Since then, the habits of these coral animals have been more carefully studied, and their ways are truly wonderful.

They are so small that it requires a magnifying glass to get a good view of them. They are in the form of tiny cylinders, at one end of which there is a mouth, surrounded by branching arms, calledtentacles. These give them their flower-like form. With thesetentaclesthey convey their food to their mouths. The food consists of the smallest particles of dead fish, or other animal matter that may have escaped the jaws of the larger fish. But, although they feed in this manner and must therefore possess the senses of touch and taste, there is no indication that they can see, or hear, or that they are sensitive when handled. They cannot move about, but remain always in the place where they were born.

A CORAL ISLAND.

And yet this minute being, which belongs to the very lowest class of animals, not only makes the branching masses of coral that looklike great stone forests under the water, but they also build immense walls, and piles of rocks, sometimes hundreds of miles in extent. The coral is made from a lime-like substance within the animal, which soon becomes very hard, and also from their lime-like bodies after they die.

Coral reefs are found only in the warm regions of the globe, for the little workmen cannot endure the cold of the northern ocean. They cannot live in the air, and so they never work above the surface of the water.

Of the branching coral there are three kinds; white, red, and pink. The white is the most porous and the least valuable, and the pink is the rarest, and most costly.

These animals are called polyps, or polypi. In some parts of the ocean there are islands that were formed by them. That is, the coral builders commenced the business by gradually piling up in the wave a mass of coral. This they began upon some sand bar far down in the ocean, and they kept at work until they got a rocky wall up to the surface of the water; and then they could go no farther. These walls are generally circular.

When the rocky coral walls reach the surface, the waves rush over them constantly, carrying with them sand, and broken fragments of corals. Some of these are left on the rocks, until, finally, they are piled up so high that the waves cannot roll over them. Thus is formed a singular-looking island, consisting of a circle of rock, with a pond of still water in the centre. This little lake is called a lagoon. Sand is strewn by the waves over the rocky reef, and rolled down into the lake, which it fills up, and, after a long time the soil becomes of sufficient depth to support coarse grasses, and sea plants. These die, and enrich the soil; and the winds, bringing from other shores the seeds of palm trees, and various plants, scatter them over the island, which is soon crowned with verdure and flowers.

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