Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1882-10-26
CITIES UNDER THE SEA.

1
There are thousands of cities under
the green waves. though perhaps you
may not think they are bit like ours.
There are no streets from one end to
the other, not Il butcher nor baker, no
milkman's bell. nor peddler's cart, and
not a sound from morning to night.
Everybody lives in stone house exact
ly like everybody else's. and nobody
goes outside of his own door. What he
wants to eat he helps himself to as it
goes by, and never finds fault with it
either. Strangest of all, one of these
marvellous cities with thousands of in
habitants would go inside of quart
! cup.
Small people, you think? Well, L
sides human beings have homes and
cities of their own. They are not peo-
ple-they are polyps, and the cities they
live in are among the prettiest things in
the sea. | dare say that you who pick
up treasures on the shore have often
carefully preserved of these little
cities, thinking twas sea-weed, which
indeed it much resembles. 'ilEG 81
Now there's one--the Sea-Thread
| Coralline-as charming as any sea-weed.
When at home, in the depths of the
ocean, it stands up from stone Or shell,
or dark brown stem no bigger than a
bit of sewing six, with many branches
and twigs. l-....
At the end of every twig is a tiny cup,
the daint est you can imagine. and in
| this little home lives polyp. He
doesn't live alone. for the twigs of the
whole little tree are hollow, and filed
with a sort of living pith which is con-
nected with each polyp, and separated
from which he would die. So you see
the tree is really an animal all through.
When the Coralline is only one inch
high, it often has fifty or sixty inhab-
itants, but when it grows to be nine or
ten inches, the residents are counted by
| hundreds.
In his pretty home each little polyp
stays, never wishing to go out. If
hungry. he has only to stand in the
door and throw out his arms-or tenta-
cles, which look like the petals of a
flower-and food is always to be found
in the water When he has enough to
eat, or when he is alarmed, he draws
in his arms, and goes back out of sight
in the house, and these are the only ex-
cursions he ever takes.
! But the babies of these little stay-at-
|
| prefer to see the world little for them
selves, before they settle down in a
humdrum polypidom, as their city is
called.
This is how they manage it. OF
course, in a city that looks like tree it
is to be expected that the young will
| look like fruit-and so they do. Here
and there among the branches will be
sometimes seen a vase-shaped box or
cup, which is of a gray color, and after
awhile becomes lively and uneasy
There's little movement at the top of
the gray vase, tentacles appear on the
edge like fine threads, there strug
| gle, a wriggle, and away jerks tiny
atom of creature, perhaps as big as q
small letter on this page. 1t is shaped
like watch crystal with twenty three
tentacles around the edge like fringe
and as lively and ierky as any jelly-tish
in the sea. In fact it seems to be a jel
| ly-fsh or medusa. Isn't that lively
baby for such steady individuals as
| polyps9
The polyps don't care-they never
trouble themselves about the young
ster, and away he goes. In short
time another one wriggles himself free,
and so they go ON till the cup is empty.
and every polyp baby is swimming
about in the water Itis not long, how
ever, before the = little creatures get
tired, settle somewhere for life. and be-
gin to grow like plants-in fact to start
cites of their own.
| Another Coralline, the Oaten Pipe
/ Coralline, is one of the most. elegant
also is shaped like plants Of yell
/ lo,,y oDIor and tho ,,ol1-,>s x.,bi oI, live of
/ the end of the branches are of a bright
1 scarlet, and when expanded look like
| beautiful double flowers, of different
sizes and shades, thus giving the whole
| polypidon1 the appearance of lovely
bouquet. az.
The babies of this Coralline do not
grow in cup, but in clusters like
bunch of grapes. When blossom or
| polvp at the end of one of the branches
has lived several days it f1des and falls
! off, like flower in the garden. But
| soon new one is seen like bud COM
| ing up through the hollow stem, which
| is also transparent. When it reaches
/ the top it. bursts out into fresh scarlet
| flower, as beautiful as the first one was.
| Several of them thus come on the same
branch. .....t.- t. i
The Beautiful Ten is the name of
another of these polyp fam les. and it
| is more like a gay, blooming shrub a
| few inches high, than ike an animal, or
city of animals. The pok-ps of this
| family, which live in tubes at the ends
of branches, are red and yellow mixed,
sometimes a pale carnation color. The
young are like clusters OF yellow grapes,
and when they leave the egg they are
no lively meduse, but white crawling
ard swimming worms.
Perhaps the prettiest city under the
sea looks like bit of brown weed, in
shape of minute feather, strung all
over with the tiniest beads you can i'm
agine. Each of these beads is a stone
house, and has its living owner. Very
| lively, too, are these atoms, quick to
draw back into the bead-shaped house,
and quick to burst out again into fairy