Corals and Coral Islands |
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Common terms and phrases
Actinia Agassiz animal Apamama Astræa atolls Author's Atlas Bahamas banks barrier reefs beach Bermudas bottom branch budding calcareous calicle Cape cells Chagos Bank change of level channels clay coast coral islands coral reefs coral rock corallum currents Darwin débris deep deposits depth diameter disk east elevation evidence extent facts fathoms Feejees feet high figure Florida formation fringing reefs genus Group growing corals growth guano Gulf Stream harbor height high islands hundred feet inches islets lagoon land Lava layer lime limestone living corals Madrepora Mæandrina Maldives margin masses miles nearly Oahu observed ocean Oculina oölite outer reef Pacific patches Paumotus Plate polyps Porites Prof Raraka reef-rock region sand sand-rock septa shallow shells shore platform side slope sometimes species submerged subsidence surface Tahiti tentacles thickness tide tion Tongatabu tribe unchanged Upolu Verrill volcanic waves Wilkes Wilkes Expedition zoöphytes
Popular passages
Page 329 - He prayeth well, who loveth well Both man and bird and beast. He prayeth best, who loveth best All things both great and small; For the dear God who loveth us, He made and loveth all.
Page 333 - The language of the natives indicates their poverty, as well as the limited productions and unvarying features of the land. All words, like those for mountain, hill, river, and many of the implements of their ancestors, as well as the trees and other vegetation of the land from which they are derived, are lost to them ; and as words are but signs for ideas, they have fallen off in general intelligence. It would be an interesting inquiry for the philosopher, to what extent a race of men, placed in...
Page 204 - On the Agency of the Gulf Stream in the Formation of the Peninsula and Keys of Florida...
Page 316 - An occasional log drifts to their shores, and at some of the more isolated atolls, where the natives are ignorant of any land but the spot they inhabit, they are deemed direct gifts from a propitiated deity.
Page 49 - ... be of the most intimate kind. The several polyps have separate mouths and tentacles, and separate stomachs ; but beyond this there is no individual property. They coalesce, or are one, by intervening tissues, and there is a free circulation of fluids through the many pores or lacunes. The zoophyte is like a living sheet of animal matter, fed and nourished by numerous mouths and as many stomachs.
Page 120 - Upon the reefs enclosing the harbor of Rewa, (Viti Lebu,) where a large river three hundred yards wide empties, which during freshets enables vessels at anchor two and a half miles off its mouth to dip up fresh water alongside, there is a single porous species of Madrepora, (M. cribripora,) growing here and there in patches over a surface of dead coral rock or sand. In similar places about other regions, species of Porites are most common.
Page 368 - ... still in progress ; the changes indicated are of a contrary character. The results to which we have here been led obviously differ, in many particulars, from the deductions of Mr Darwin. 2. Elevations of modern eras in the Pacific. Since the period of subsidence, the history of which has occupied us in the preceding pages, there has been no equally general elevation. Yet various parts of the ocean bear evidence of changes confined to particular islands or groups of islands.
Page 346 - ... about those of the igneous islands whose fires had become nearly or quite extinct; and as others in succession were extinguished, these became in their turn the sites of corals, and reefs began to form. Those lands whose volcanoes still burn, are yet without corals, or there are only limited patches on some favored spots. Zoophytes and volcanoes are the land-making agents of the Pacific. The latter prepare the way by pouring forth the liquid rock, and building up the lofty summit. Quiet succeeds,...
Page 100 - Carbonic-acid springs are by no means a universal -attendant on volcanic action. The Pacific affords no one fact in support of such an opinion. There are none on Hawaii, where are the most active fires in Polynesia ; and the many explorations of the Society and Navigator Islands have brought none to light. Some of the largest reefs of the Pacific, those of Australia and New Caledonia, occur where there is no evidence of former volcanic action.
Page 18 - ... of labor than bone-making in ourselves. And again, it is not a collection of cells into which the coral animals may withdraw for concealment, any more than the skeleton of a dog is its house or cell : for every part of the coral of a polyp in most reef-making species is enclosed within the polyp, where it was formed by the secreting process.* It is important that this point should be thoroughly understood, and fully appreciated.