Having understood thus far the general nature of these polypes, which
are the fabricators both of the red and white coral, let us consider a
little more particularly how the skeletons of the red coral and of the
white coral are formed. The red coral polype perches upon the sea
bottom, it then grows up into a sort of stem, and out of that stem there
grow branches, each of which has its own polypes; and thus you have a
kind of tree formed, every branch of the tree terminated by its
polype. It is a tree, but at the end of the branches there are open
mouths of polypes instead of flowers. Thus there is a common soft body
connecting the whole, and as it grows up the soft body deposits in its
interior a quantity of carbonate of lime, which acquires a beautiful
red or flesh colour, and forms a kind of stem running through the whole,
and it is that stem which is the red coral. The red coral grows
principally at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea, at very great
depths, and the coral fishers, who are very adventurous seamen, take
their drag nets, of a peculiar kind, roughly made, but efficient for
their purpose, and drag them along the bottom of the sea to catch the
branches of the red coral, which become entangled and are thus brought
up to the surface. They are then allowed to putrefy, in order to get
rid of the animal matter, and the red coral is the skeleton that is
left.

In the case of the white coral, the skeleton is more complete. In the
red coral, the skeleton belongs to the whole; in the white coral there
is a special skeleton for every one of these polypes in addition to
that for the whole body. There is a skeleton formed in the body of
each of them, like a cup divided by a number of radiating partitions
towards the outside; and that cup is formed of carbonate of lime, only
not stained red, as in the case of the red coral. And all these cups