Evening capital. (Annapolis, Md.) 1884-1910, 1892-11-14
FORMATION OF CORAL
HOW THE PoLYPS 90 THEIR ST.
LENT YET LASTING WORK.

The Lovely sea Anemones and What Is
Made from Their skeIetons-Polyps
Do Not Toll; They simply Die-Beau-
tifnl Animal Vegetables.
The term "coral insect" survives in
long ago. Possibly the idea of toll"
and patience" and building for the
future, as the lesson taught by the coral
insect, also survives to point moral and
adorn tale of the same order as one
praising the industry of the ant or the
bee. Alas for old beliefsI Our grand
mothers were exhorted to reflect ON the
vanity of the moth and the butterfly.
Now it is known that the moth and
the butterfly are among the chief agents
by which the most beautiful and fra
grant flowers are fertilized, and that
honey and perfume and color and fruit
largely depend upon the energy of the
insects formerly despised. The other
so called insects have no more energy
than simple vegetable existence. Their
toll is nothing greater than dying and
leaving their skeletons behind them.
But how beautiful are these skeletons,
or a conglomerated accumulation of
myriadsl And how beautiful and inter
esting, too, the animal vegetables, or
rather fowerlike animals. ''Sea anem-
ones" is the popular name given to the
whole tribe. with their disklike mouths
their petaloid tentacles, their stomach
suggesting seed vessels and their fixed
bases corresponding to stout stems, to
say nothing of their brilliant colors
rivahng the most gorgeous corollas ever
blown.
According to DIR. Gustav Eisen, there
are two kinds of corals of the sea anem-
one order-those which produce coral,
that Is, the hard, calcareous formation,
and those which do not. The popular
term coral, as applied to the accumu
lated dead skeletons Of the dead polyrs.
is not strictly correct; coral, properly
speaking, refers also to the living ami
NAL.
The sea flower, although suggesting
plantlike structure, is still true ami
NAL. 1t has a skin, also rudimentary
nerves. 1t can seize with its tentacles;
it can swallow and digest its food and
throw out the refuse from its month"; it
can defend itself from its enemies by
forcibly ejecting poison from its many
stings. lit has some sensation. Quite
number of species of polyps have rudi-
mentary eyes. arranged around their
circular edges like beads. The hardened
base Of the sea flower corresponds to
skeleton in higher order of animal,
even though in some an emones the hard.
ness may only he relative.
Coral animals of the sea anemone or
der reproduce their kind in several ways.
One is by ova, which develop perfect
polyps within the parent flower An
other mode is by budding; still another
by fssion In the latter method a new
mouth may form beside the old one in
the center of ffinged disk, which then
divides into disks, each surrounded BY
its own tentacles and each leading to its
own closed sac. In the budding process
branches are thrown out, from which
spring new polyps. Tear one polyp to
pieces, and each piece may reproduce
all the parts it needs to form "A fresh
polyp.
The familiar tree coral is the result
Of the budding process. The branches
below are the dead skeletons, above
which the living polyps have mounted.
The singular convulutions in brain
coral" were caused by fission. one mouth
giving rise TO strings of others. which
never completely separated from each
other, and 50 left continuous line of
stony skeletons. 1t must not be sup
posed, however, that zoophytes of the
style of sea anemones are the only coral
producers. Some calcareous secretions
are left by animals related to the me-
duse, or jeIlyfish. Other corals come
from the bryozoans, which look like pol
Ups, but really belong to the subking
dom Of nloIluslgs. The bottom of the
sea is largely covered with deposits from
such animals. 1t is even believed that
ia early times they made up the greater
part of limestone strata. Mention must
also be made of the beautiful and brill
liant c0rallines, or vegetable corals. cal
careons seaweeds, which look like red.
white ard yellow branched coral, but
which, properly speaking. are algae.
Corals of some kinds are found IN all
seas. Those stony formations polularly
calle.7 corals are Inostl s TrodRced within
the tropics Probably the yarlety best
known Is the rcd Or pink coral. long es-
teesned for ornaments This was found
III the Mediterranean from a very early
peraesiss Now however, it has become
50 rare rs 70 l,s prsetically extinct