means of still increasing its coral palace, and thus it goes on till it has formed a habitation, not for itself, but, as I said, for man, in the midst of the world of waters.

One of their most celebrated historians, Amoureux, thus expresses himself upon this part of their history. "Some, by their union or aggregation, form a long narrow ridge or reef, which extends uninterruptedly several degrees, opposing an immovable rampart to the great currents of the sea, which it often traverses, the solidity and magnitude of which increases daily. Sometimes this line of madreporic rocks assumes a circular form; the polypes that inhabit it gradually elevate their rocky dwelling to the surface of the sea, working then in a sheltered basin, they by little and little fill up its voids, taking the precaution, however, to leave in the upper part of this impenetrable wall openings by which the water can enter and retire, so as to renew itself, and furnish them with a constant supply of their aliment, and of the material with which they erect their habitation."

They do not always elevate their polyparies from the depths of the waters to their surface, some extend themselves horizontally upon the bottom of the sea, following its curvatures, declivities, and anfractuosities, and cover the soil of old ocean with an enamelled carpet of various and brilliant colours, sometimes of a single colour as

dazzling as the purple of the ancients. Many of these beings are like a tree which winter has stripped of its leaves, but which the spring adorns with new flowers, and they strike the beholder by the eclat of petal-like animals, with which their branches are covered from the base to the extremity.

Captain Beechey has given a most interesting account of the proceeding and progress of these animals in erecting these mighty works, and of the manner in which the sea forms ridges, when the animals have carried their work as high as they can upon these at length a soil is formed beyond the reach of its waves; a vegetation next commences, in time plants and trees spring up, animals arrive, and man himself finds it a convenient residence. His account is too long to copy, I must therefore refer the reader to it, but I must give here his statement of some proceedings of these animals, which have a bearing upon the principal design of the present work, and seem to indicate an instinctive sagacity in the polypes far above their rank in the animal kingdom, and quite inconsistent with their organization.

Speaking of Ducies Island, a formation of the coral animals, he describes it as taking the shape of a truncated cone with the face downwards, the form best calculated to resist the action of the ocean, and then proceeds to say, "The north

eastern and south-western extremities are furnished with points which project under water with less inclination than the sides of the island, and break the sea before it can reach the barrier to the little lagoon formed within it. It is singular that these buttresses are opposed to the only two quarters whence their structure has to apprehend danger, that on the north-east, from the constant action of the trade wind, and that on the other extremity, from the long rolling swell from the south-west so prevalent in these latitudes; and it is worthy of observation, that this barrier, which has the most powerful enemy to oppose, is carried out much farther and with less abruptness than the other." We should feel some surprise if a bee, in the construction of its comb, should strengthen the points most exposed to injury; but that an animal apparently gifted with the lowest degree of sensation, and no intellect, should know where to erect buttresses so as best to provide for the security of its structure indicates in a striking degree the superintendence of Providence directing its blind efforts and unconscious operations.

After considering all the wonderful facts here stated with regard to the proceeding and progress of these seemingly insignificant animals, a speculative imagination may not only picture to itself, with respect to any group of coral islands, its

conversion into one vast plain, yielding forests of bread-fruit and other trees, and ultimately sustenance to a numerous population, and a variety of animals subservient to their use, but taking a wider range and still further enlarging its view, might behold the tropical portion of the vast Pacific, not only studded with these islands, but exhibiting them in such frequent clusters and so large, as almost to form a kind of bridge of communication between Asia and America. Indeed, at present, we know not how far these founders of islands may have been concerned in rearing a considerable portion of those continents that form the old world. Calcareous strata and ridges occur every where, and though other causes may have contributed to their formation,1 yet it is not improbable, that at the time when our northern climates were inhabited by tropical animals, our seas also might abound in madrepores, &c. which might bear their part in the erection of some of our islands.

Professor Buckland, in the appendix to Captain Beechey's Voyage, states that even within the arctic circle there are spots that can be shewn to have been once the site of extensive coral reefs. The old coral reefs that existed previously to the deluge, by that great catastrophe, in many cases, might be formed into chalk ridges. This

1 See Lyell's Geol. 1. 130. 210.

indeed seems proved by the remains of marine animals, especially sea-urchins, which from this circumstance the common people know by the name of chalk-eggs, and which, we learn from Captain Beechey, abound on the submerged ledges of some coral Islands; and at the same period, it is surely no improbable supposition, under the directing hand of Him who willed to destroy the earth by the waters of a flood, and at the same time determined, according to the good pleasure of his will, the precise mode of its renovation, that in the course of the rise, prevalence, or subsidence of the mighty waters, which, for the principal part of a year, acted with irresistible force upon the earth, considerable additions might be made from the debris of the earth's disrupted crust, to the reefs of coral that were left unsubverted, and so many islands be formed or enlarged.

When the Creator formed the coral animals, what foresight, as well as power and wisdom did he manifest! That a minute pouch of animated matter, with no other organs than a few tentacles surrounding its mouth, should be fitted to secrete calcareous particles from food collected by it, to transpire or regurgitate them so as to construct for itself a limestone house, that it should be empowered perpetually to send forth germes that could also act the same part; and thus in process of time, by their combined efforts, build up in the