e from its parent; and having been so carried it loses these
organs by which it is propelled, and settles down upon the bottom of the
sea and grows up again into the form and condition of its parents. So
that if you suppose a single polype of this kind settled upon the bottom
of the sea, it may by these various methods--that is to say, by cutting
itself in two, which we call "fission," or by budding; or by sending out
these swimming embryos,--multiply itself to an enormous extent, and
give rise to thousands, or millions, of progeny in a comparatively short
time; and these thousands, or millions, of progeny may cover a very
large surface of the sea bottom; in fact, you will readily perceive
that, give them time, and there is no limit to the surface which they
may cover.

Having understood thus far the general nature of these polypes, which
are the fabricators both of the red and white coral, let us consider a
little more particularly how the skeletons of the red coral and of
the white coral are formed. The red coral polype perches upon the sea
bottom, it then grows up into a sort of stem, and out of that stem there
grow branches, each of which has its own polypes; and thus you have a
kind of tree formed, every branch of the tree terminated by its polype.
It is a tree, but at the end of the branches there are open mouths of
polypes instead of flowers. Thus there is a common soft body connecting
the whole, and as it grows up the soft body deposits in its interior a
quantity of carbonate of lime, which acquires a beautiful red or flesh
colour, and forms a kind of stem running through the whole, and it is
that stem which is the red coral. The red coral grows principally at
the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea, at very great depths, and the coral
fishers, who are very adventurous seamen, take their drag nets, of a
peculiar kind, roughly made, but efficient for their purpose, and drag
them along the bottom of the sea to catch the branches of the red coral,
which become entangled and are thus brought up to the surface. 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 is a skeleton formed in the body of each of
them, l