The Fairy-Land of Science | Page 8

better still to have a mental picture of the tiny atoms
clasping each other, and mingling so as to make a new substance, and
to feel how wonderful are the many changing forms of nature. It is
useful to be able to classify a flower and to know that the buttercup
belongs to the Family Ranunculaceae, with petals free and definite,
stamens hypogynous and indefinite, pistil apocarpous. But it is far
sweeter to learn about the life of the little plant, to understand why its
peculiar flower is useful to it, and how it feeds itself, and makes its
seed. No one can love dry facts; we must clothe them with real
meaning and love the truths they tell, if we wish to enjoy science.
Let us take an example to show this. I have here a branch of white coral,
a beautiful, delicate piece of nature's work. We will begin by copying a
description of it from one of those class-books which suppose children
to learn words like parrots, and to repeat them with just as little
understanding.
"Coral is formed by an animal belonging to the kingdom of Radiates,
sub-kingdom Polypes. The soft body of the animal is attached to a
support, the mouth opening upwards in a row of tentacles. The coral is

secreted in the body of the polyp out of the carbonate of lime in the sea.
Thus the coral animalcule rears its polypidom or rocky structure in
warm latitudes, and constructs reefs or barriers round islands. It is
limited in rage of depth from 25 to 30 fathoms. Chemically considered,
coral is carbonate of like; physiologically, it is the skeleton of an
animal; geographically, it is characteristic of warm latitudes, especially
of the Pacific Ocean." This description is correct, and even fairly
complete, if you know enough of the subject to understand it. But tell
me, does it lead you to love my piece of coral? Have you any picture in
your mind of the coral animal, its home, or its manner of working?
But now, instead of trying to master this dry, hard passage, take Mr.
Huxley's penny lecture on 'Coral and Coral Reefs,' and with the piece
of coral in your hand try really to learn its history. You will then be
able to picture to yourself the coral animal as a kind of sea-anemone,
something like those which you have often seen, like red, blue, or green
flowers, putting out feelers in sea-water on our coasts, and drawing in
the tiny sea-animals to digest them in that bag of fluid which serves the
sea-anemone as a stomach. You will learn how this curious jelly animal
can split itself in two, and so form two polyps, or send a bud out of its
side and so grow up into a kind of "tree or bush of polyps," or how it
can hatch little eggs inside it and throw out young ones from its mouth,
provided with little hairs, by means of which they swim to new
resting-places. You will learn the difference between the animal which
builds up the red coral as its skeleton, and the group of animals which
build up the white; and you will look with new interest on our piece of
white coral, as you read that each of those little sups on its stem with
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