IN a previous chapter, I promised to tell you of one of nature's greatest wonders, found at the bottom of the deep, dark, blue sea. I told you something about the Polypes, the simple yet beautiful little creatures which from earliest times were thought to be plants, but are now known to be in reality animals. Some are soft in substance—jelly-like, and when they die, decompose and leave no trace behind. Now I am to describe a very different class of creatures, though in some respects the same. The animals themselves are Polypes, just as described in the last chapter; they are soft and flesh-like in substance, but they have the power to secrete, that is throw off, a milky lime-like substance, which becomes as hard as the hardest stone. This substance assumes the shape of a little cell surrounding the Polype, which is really the home of the Polype.
You will remember that we described a Polype as a small sack closed at one end, the mouth being the opening at the other, and that it always attached itself by the closed end of the sack to some substance. Now the deep sea Polypes construct this calcareous cell, to the bottom of which the little sack is fastened. The mouth part of the Polype extends beyond the cell, and has eight arms, which spread themselves out like the petals of a flower; and when expanded are exactly like a beautiful white and semi-transparent flower; when closed they have the appearance of an urn. These Polypes produce the far-famed corals, which for hundreds of years have been matters of deep interest to all students of natural history, and sought after at a great cost as ornaments for the person.
The coral, as all my little readers know who have seen a coral necklace, is a most beautiful red, and for thousands of years it has been made into all kinds of ornaments. The ancient Gauls and Indians decorated their swords with it. Now the darkest colored Africans use it as a beautiful contrast to their black skins; and the fairest ladies in the world prize it as the greatest set-off to their beauty.
I could tell you some amusing stories of the contentions of learned men about this simple little creature. For many years some have ranged on one side, and some on the other; one contending it was a plant, the other that it was a real living animal. The first great man who discovered the expanding and closing of the Polype, concluded he had settled the matter forever. He was an Italian naturalist, and with great satisfaction he announced to the scientific world that he had discovered the flowers of the coral. By placing branches of coral in sea water, immediately after they had been fished up, the Italian naturalist saw the bud-like protuberances which cover the surface, open like so many eight petaled flowers, formed of elegant white and star shaped carollas. These he at once took to be the flowers of the mysterious shrub, and at once made known his discovery to the Academy of Sciences, which learned assembly was readily convinced. This settlement, however, did not last long. A French physician, who made no great pretensions to be a learned man, was watching the coral fishers in Barbary, and at once began a long investigation on the subject. The result was, he became convinced that the coral was not a plant, but so many little animals or Polypes. The learned Academy of Sciences were slow to receive the truth; a great stir was made, but the country physician was found to be right, and the learned men to be wrong. The coral flowers turned out to be only Polypes, and the stony shrub to be only a shell or place of abode for them.
For hundreds of years there was another mistake respecting the coral. It was difficult to conceive how a plant could become so hard as the coral. The fishermen, following an ancient tradition, maintained that the shrub, so long as it is under water, is not harder than ordinary plants, but that it hardens suddenly when brought in contact with the air. All the world believed the fishermen. An inspector of fisheries, however, was very unbelieving as to this, and sent a diver down to the bottom of the sea to test this point. The man brought back word that it was as hard in the sea as in the air! None would believe him, and the inspector could only be convinced by himself diving to ascertain the fact.
Thus for two thousand years men continued to doubt and speculate before finding out the true nature of the coral; and all this time was necessary to prove that it is only the production of a simple Polype, and that in the depths of the sea, it is as hard as when it is fashioned into those bracelets and rich necklaces which are regarded as such a charming contrast with both the white and black skins of those who think themselves the most beautiful women in the world.
It would be impossible to give you a just impression of the almost infinite form, size, and character of these Polypes, and of the varied shapes in which they build themselves up. Some are like a beautiful delicate stem of a plant; some like trunks of trees; some like leaves and fruit; some like a bundle of sticks, and some like solid rocks. Many books have been written describing all these wonderful varieties. The number of Polypes on a small branch of coral is absolutely astounding. On one piece three feet long it was calculated by one gentleman in India that there could not be fewer-than 8,000,000,000, a number almost equaling that of the population of the globe, yet all produced from the successive building of a single Polype.
Before I close I must give you a short account of the mighty work which these wonderful little creatures have built up. Of course you have all heard of the coral reefs which are so abundant in the ocean, especially in the Southern Pacific Ocean. These are nothing more than immense accumulations of the homes of the Polypes. These obscure but diligent artisans build one on the top of another, and then die. And this they do with such wonderful rapidity that new islands are constantly appearing. In the Pacific alone there are nearly 300, covering over 20,000 square miles The, prodigious extent of their combined labors must be seen, to be adequately conceived. They have built up a reef along the shores of New Caledonia for a length of 400 miles, and another which runs along the north-west coast of Australia, 1,000 miles in extent. What are the walls of Babylon, or the Pyramids of Egypt compared to this vast mass! And edifices of the Polype have been reared in the midst of the ocean waves, and in defiance of tempests which so rapidly annihilate the greatest and strongest works of man. Immense as is this work of rearing up great islands, it is but a small portion of what they have done. It is now discovered that the immense mountains of the world are the work of these busy little creatures. They are of coral formation, and the results, it may be, of the work of thousands of years while this earth was in a state of chaos. Indeed, they may well be called the builders of the world.