3384 POPULAR SCRIPTURE ZOOLOGY.

The beautiful and well-known substance called Coral,
mentioned only in Job xxviii., “ No mention shall be made
of coral or of pearls; for the price of wisdom is above
rubies,” is of a very singular and interesting nature. “The
animals of the genus Coraliina are arborescent or tree-like in
form; the stem fixed, with calcareous, subdivided branches,
mostly jointed. Neither pores nor polypes are distinguish-
able on the surface of these beings, and they were formerly
supposed to be vegetable; but they give the most evident
tokens of large portions of ammonia, the common test of
animal substance, and have been often traced to have spon-
taneous motion. Every tube, vesicle, or articulation is pro-
bably the enclosure of a distinct animal, so that the entire
mass of tree is a family ; in this respect resembling a vege-
table tree, in which every bud may also be regarded as an
individual living plant*.”

To the growth of coral is owing a very great proportion
of the islands in the Polynesian Archipelago and in the
Indian Ocean ; but that there must have been land within a
certain distance from the surface, is very well ascertained, as
it is now known that the coral polypes cannot build from a
greater depth than twenty fathoms.

* Manunder’s Treasury.