delicate divisions like the spokes of a wheel has been the home
of a separate polyp, and that from the sea-water each little
jelly animal has drunk in carbonate of lime as you drink in sugar
dissolved in water, and then has used it grain by grain to build
that delicate cup and add to the coral tree.

We cannot stop to examine all about coral now, we are only
learning how to learn, but surely our specimen is already
beginning to grow interesting; and when you have followed it out
into the great Pacific Ocean, where the wild waves dash
restlessly against the coral trees, and have seen these tiny
drops of jelly conquering the sea and building huge walls of
stone against the rough breakers, you will hardly rest till you
know all their history. Look at that curious circular island in
the picture, covered with palm trees; it has a large smooth lake
in the middle, and the bottom of this lake is covered with blue,
red, and green jelly animals, spreading out their feelers in the
water and looking like beautiful flowers, and all round the
outside of the island similar animals are to be seen washed by
the sea waves. Such islands as this have been build entirely by
the coral animals, and the history of the way in which the reefs
have sunk gradually down, as the tiny creatures added to them
inch by inch, is as fascinating as the story of the building of
any fairy palace in the days of old. Read all this, and then if
you have no coral of your own to examine, go to the British
Museum and see the beautiful specimens in the glass cases there,
and think that they have been built up under the rolling surf by
the tiny jelly animals; and then coral will become a real living
thing to you, and you will love the thoughts it awakens.