Part 29 (2/2)

_Photograph by C. R-W._]

”But I thought Bermuda was a coral island!”

”The coral polyp has got to grow on something, hasn't it?” the scientist reminded him. ”Don't forget that the little creatures can't live in deep water. And, you see, Bermuda has gradually been sinking, the coral builders keeping pace with the subsidence, so that although the island is only two miles across at the widest point the reefs are ten miles wide.”

”It really is coral, then?”

”As much as any island is. The base of any coral island is limestone, being made of the skeletons of coral polypi which have been broken and crushed by wind and weather and beaten into stone. Just as chalk is made of thousands of tiny sh.e.l.ls, so coral limestone is made of myriads of coral skeletons.”

”Why, that's like sandstone,” cried Colin, in a disappointed tone. ”I had an idea that coral was a sort of insect that lived in a sh.e.l.l and that colonies of these grew up from the bottom of the water like trees and when they died--millions of them--they left the sh.e.l.ls and these stone forests grew up and up until they reached the top of the water and then soil was formed and that was how coral islands began.”

”I'm not surprised at your thinking that,” his chief replied, ”lots of people do. And though that theory is all wrong, still if it has given folks an idea of the beauty and wonder of the world, there's no great harm done. Plenty of people still talk about the coral 'insect.' It never occurs to them to call an anemone an 'insect,' but they don't know that the coral polyp is more like an anemone than anything else.”

”But an anemone is a soft flabby thing that waves a lot of jelly-like fingers about in the water.”

”So does coral,” was the reply, ”and it eats and lives just in the same way, only that the coral polyp has a stony skeleton and most of the sea anemones have not. But every different one has some sort of a story to tell and I believe they get joy out of life just as we do. Else why should some of these forms be so beautiful? You note them closely when we pa.s.s over some of the reefs, and I should judge we are coming to them now.”

Certainly if the coloration was any clue, the boat was coming to the great sea-gardens. Above the white bottom the water shone a vivid emeraldine green, changing to sharply marked browns over the shoals, while beyond the inner reefs it varied from all shades of sapphire blue to radiant aquamarine. Nowhere was the water of the same color for a hundred yards together, while every ruffling of the surface, every slant of sunlight gave it a new hue. Colin was entranced and wished to see more closely, but the boat was going too swiftly to let down a water gla.s.s and he was forced to wait a few minutes.

”Ah b'lieve, sah,” said Early Bird presently, hauling in the sheet, ”we might let the sail down heah. We'll drift just about fast enough fo' you to watch the bottom.”

Mr. Collier handed one of the water gla.s.ses to the boatman. It was formed like a deep square box with a gla.s.s window for a bottom, and a specially prepared crystal had been used.

”That's an improvement on the old kind, Early Bird,” he said; ”what do you think of it?”

The Bermudian darky looked through the gla.s.s critically.

”Yes, sah,” he said, ”thar's no compah'son 'tween the two. The bottom looks bettah through that gla.s.s than it does when yo' down theh yo'self. Ah used to do a little diving at one time, but the reefs nevah showed up that cleah. It would be a big thing fo' the boats that take tourists out if they could have gla.s.ses like that one there.”

”It would be, perhaps,” the scientist said, laughing, ”but they could almost build a boat for what one of these would cost.”

”Isn't that the most gorgeous thing you ever saw!” cried Colin, as he set his eye to the gla.s.s, which Early Bird handed him. ”There's no garden on land with such colors as that.”

”There are no flowers in the garden you're looking at, remember,” his friend reminded him.

”Don't need them,” said the boy. ”Look at that tall purple plant waving to and fro. Isn't that a sea-fan?”

”Yes,” his companion answered, ”that's a sea-fan, but it isn't a plant.

It's a kind of coral.”

”Is it? I always thought it was a seaweed.”

”You'll be calling a sponge a plant next. See those red lumps, near the bottom of that rock? Those are sponges.”

”Now there's some real coral!” the boy cried.

”All coral is real coral. What you are looking at is probably a form of the stag's horn variety,” the curator said, ”and that does look more like the coral of commerce. But everything you are looking at, nearly, is coral. These great dome-like stones, do you see them?”

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