foreign to our present object: but the pleasure of the original enjoyment appears to be principally of a physical character; and is no doubt intended to produce, at the moment, a highly beneficial, though merely physical effect: for while the eye of the child is attracted by the unexpected forms and colours of the plants and flowers presented to his view, and his mind is instigated to gratify the eager desire of possessing them, he necessarily subjects his limbs to that degree of exercise and fatigue, which contributes to the general health of his body. Nor let such pleasures be undervalued in their consequence: they give that moderate stimulus to the whole. system, which even the early age of infancy requires; and, by shutting out the listlessness that would arise from inactivity, they become eventually the source of moral and intellectual improvement. With reference to the primary wants of mankind at large, the vegetable kingdom is of the highest importance. Let the earth cease to produce its accustomed fruits, and every form of animal life must be soon annihilated: for all animals either derive their nourishment directly from vegetable food, or feed on those animals which have themselves fed on vegetables. And, without the aid of the same productions, we should be deprived of various substances which are now employed for clothing, and fuel, and the construction of our habitations. But the adaptation of the vegetable kingdom to the arts and conveniences of life is visible in numerous other instances: and the principal difficulty, in illustrating this point, is the selection of appropriate examples, and the order of their arrangement.

SECTION II.

The Cocoa-nut Tree, including the formation of Coral Reefs.

For the purpose of introducing in a more particular manner the general subject of this chapter, and as an impressive example of the important ends which nature often accomplishes by the simplest means, I propose to consider the mode in which the cocoa-nut tree is spontaneously propagated in the coral islands of the Indian Archipelago and elsewhere: nor will it be an undue anticipation of a subsequent department of this treatise, if I previously give a brief description of the process by which those islands have themselves been brought into existence. The account of their origin indeed belongs more strictly to the history of the animal than of the vegetable world; but the two subjects are so naturally connected, that it would be injudicious to separate them.

It may be collected from the observations of the French navigator, M. Péron, (Ann. du Mus. tom. vi. p. 30, &c.) that almost all those countless islands of the Pacific Ocean, which are found to the

south of the equator between New Holland and the western coast of America, are either entirely or in part made up of coral: and all the adjacent ocean abounds with coral reefs, which, constantly augmenting, are constantly changing the state of bays, and ports, and gulfs; so that new charts are continually required for the same coasts. From Barrow also it appears, (Barrow's Cochin China, p. 167,) that the formation of coral reefs or isles is very common in the tropical parts of the Eastern and Pacific Ocean. And Captain Flinders says that the quantity of coral reefs between New Holland and New Caledonia and New Guinea, is such, that this might be called the Corallian Sea. (Flinders's Voyage, vol. ii. p. 314).

Many more references might be made, to others as well as the above-mentioned voyagers, in order to show that the formation of coral islands is effected by nature on a very extensive scale: but, for the present purpose, the preceding references may be considered sufficient. Let us now therefore describe the general character and mode of formation of these islands.

Forster says that the low islands of tropical seas are commonly "narrow, low ledges of coral rock, including in the middle a kind of lagoon; and having here and there little sandy spots, somewhat elevated above the level of high water, on which cocoa-nuts thrive:" correspondent with which description is the account given by Captain Cook, on the occasion of discovering one of these coral reefs; which was at first mistaken by him for land. "This proved to be," he says, "another of those low or half-drowned islands, or rather a large coral shoal, of about twenty leagues in circuit. A very small part of it was land, which consisted of little islets ranged along the north side, and connected by sand-banks and breakers. These islets were clothed with wood, among which the cocoa-nut trees were only distinguishable. We ranged the south side of this shoal at the distance of one or two miles from the coral bank, against which the sea broke in a dreadful surf. In the middle of the shoal was a large lake, or inland sea, in which was a canoe under sail." (Cook's Voyage, 4to. 1777. vol. i. p. 141, 142.)

Coral, considered as an individual substance, is a natural form of carbonate of lime, produced by an animal of the polype kind. The particles of carbonate of lime, however produced, are cemented together so firmly by a glutinous secretion of the same animal, as to acquire a degree of consistence, which not only forms a safe habitation for a race of animalcules, from their soft texture most obnoxious to external injuries; but which is calculated to resist the utmost action of the sea, and in many instances to protect the original surface of the earth itself from its assaults. Thus almost all the tropical islands, which Cook saw in the South Pacific Ocean, are guarded from the sea, to a greater or less extent, by a reef of

* Forster's Voyage round the World, p. 14, 15.

coral rocks, extending out from the shore to the distance of six hundred feet and farther; and on this reef the force of the sea is spent before it reaches the land: and thus nature has effectually secured these islands from the encroachments of the sea, though many of them are mere points when compared with that vast ocean.*

As the specific gravity of coral is greater than that of sea-water, the structure of a coral reef necessarily commences either from the natural bed of the ocean, or from the surface of some submarine rock; and, as may be collected from the nature of the soundings among coral reefs, the whole structure is very frequently disposed in the form of a crescent; sometimes even approaching to a circle. This crescent is, on the convex side, built up throughout in very nearly a perpendicular direction; so as to form a wall, which is exposed to that quarter from whence a stormy sea most frequently prevails. The interior of the structure seems gradually to shelve off; so that about the centre of the inclosed, or partially inclosed space, the sea is found of its natural depth. Correspondently with such an arrangement, it happens usually that the soundings gradually lessen from the centre of the area inclosed by a coral reef, towards the exterior ridge; and then suddenly sink to two hundred fathoms

or more.

66

To the foregoing observations I shall subjoin the opinion of Captain Flinders on the process observed by nature in the formation of coral reefs. It seems to me," he says, "that when the animalcules, which form the coral at the bottom of the ocean, cease to live, there structures adhere to each other by virtue either of the glutinous remains within, or of some property in salt water; and the interstices being gradually filled up with sand and broken pieces of coral washed by the sea, which also adhere, a mass of rock is at length formed. Future races of these animalcules erect their habitations upon the rising bank, and die in their turn; to increase, but principally to elevate, this monument of their wonderful labours. The care taken to work perpendicularly, in the early stages, would mark a surprising instinct in these diminutive creatures. Their wall of coral, for the most part in situations where the winds are constant, being arrived at the surface, affords a shelter; to leeward of which their infant colonies may be safely sent forth and to this, their instinctive foresight, it seems to be owing, that the windward side of a reef, exposed to the open sea, is generally, if not always, the highest part; rising almost perpendicularly, sometimes from the depth of two hundred and perhaps many more fathoms. To be constantly covered with water seems necessary to the existence of the animalcules; for they do not work, except in holes upon the reef, beyond low water-mark: but the coral sand, and other broken

• Cook's Voyage, 1777, 4to. vol. i. p. 212.

remnants thrown up by the sea, adhere to the rock, and form a solid mass with it, as high as the common tides reach. That elevation surpassed, the future remnants, being rarely covered, lose their adhesive property; and, remaining in a loose state, form what is usually called a key upon the top of the reef. The new bank is not long in being visited by sea birds; salt plants take root upon it, and a soil begins to be formed; a cocoa-nut, or the drupe of a pandanus, is thrown on shore; land birds visit it, and deposite the seeds of shrubs and trees; every high tide, and still more every gale, adds something to the bank; the form of an island is gradually assumed; and, last of all, comes man to take possession."*

In the base of a coral island of the above description, Captain Flinders distinguished not only the sand, coral, and shells, formerly thrown up, in a more or less perfect state of cohesion; but also small pieces of wood, pumice-stone, and other extraneous bodies, which chance had mixed with the calcareous substances when the cohesion began, and which in some cases were still separable from the rock without much force. Such sand-banks are found in different stages of progress; some being overflowed with every returning tide; some raised above high-water mark, but destitute of vegetation; some, lastly, habitable and abounding in trees.

Let us here pause for a moment to contemplate the wonderful effect produced by apparently the most inadequate means. And wonderful indeed is the effect, even if the process above described were now to cease for ever; but much more, if we look to its probable extension: for, reasoning on what has already been accomplished, and on what is at this moment rapidly advancing, it is evidently probable that a new habitable surface of land may be eventually produced, equal in extent to the whole of Europe, and produced by the agency of a tribe of animals, which occupy very nearly the lowest steps in the scale of animal creation, and which in every other respect are the most inefficient and helpless of creatures. For, fixed as they are, both individually and collectively, to a completely local habitation; or, rather, buried as it were in a strong mass of coral, and literally

"Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,"

their general appearance and mode of growth so little resemble the animal character, that, for a long time, many of the species were considered as of vegetable origin; and are, even now, very commonly called zoophytes, or animated plants.

Nor let us fail to observe, in the foregoing account, the physical fitness for each other of two very different departments of nature. The same geographical climate which gives birth to those animals,

*Flinders Voyage, vol. ii. p. 115, 116.

† Ibid, p. 116.

whose labours produce this previously unexpected habitable surface, gives birth also to those vegetables, which, at the same time that they are capable of growing on so loose and poor a soil, are capable besides of supplying its future inhabitants not only with nutritious food, both in a liquid and a solid form, but with materials for constructing their habitations, and for many other useful purposes. And in the mean time the fowls of the air, and the very winds and waves, are all employed in administering to the beneficent intentions of Providence. Of little use would be a new habitable surface, were it never to be tenanted by human beings; and in vain would man attempt to colonize that surface, were it barren of vegetable productions: but the seeds of various plants, as we have seen in the foregoing descriptions, are either brought by birds, or drifted by the wind and waves, to a soil calculated to support them.

Among the vegetable productions of coral islands, the cocoa-nut tree stands pre-eminent in value; containing in itself nearly all those important properties, which are found at large in that natural family of plants, the palms: and valuable indeed are those properties, if we may rely on the accounts which have been given of them by dif ferent authors; and of the truth of those accounts there is no sufficient reason to doubt. Johnston,* speaking of the abundance of the cocoa-nut tree in India, where he says it occurs to a greater extent than the olive in Spain, or the willow in Holland, affirms that there is no part of the tree which is not applied to some useful purpose. Not only the cabins of the poorer natives, but large houses, are constructed entirely with materials afforded by this tree; the trunk, when split, supplying rafters, &c.; and the leaves, when plaited, making roofs and walls, which are impervious to wind and rain. The statement of Johnston is confirmed by captain Seely, in his account of Ellorat, who says that "when he was stationed at Goa, in 1809, he lived, as many others did, in a cocoa-nut leaf house; and that although the period was in the very height of the monsoon, and the house was on the sea-coast, it was comfortable and warm. He believes that not a nail was used in the whole building: the rafters and supporters, &c. were fastened on with string made of the fibrous envelope of the cocoa-nut shell; the wood was the tree itself; the roof, walls, doors, and windows were the leaf." From the same anthority we learn that the fibres, enveloping the shell of the nut, may be woven into a cable by which ships of seventy-four guns have safely rode out heavy gales, when European cables have parted.

In the Wernerian Memoirs, vol. v. p. 107, &c., is a very interesting account of the cocoa tree; in which the author states that this tree will grow on the sand of the sea-shore, where scarcely anything else will vegetate: which corresponds with the account of an author above-mentioned, who, speaking of its growth, says, "radicem t London, 1824, 8vo. p. 284.

* Johnstonus de Arboribus, p. 146, &c.