And just as we know there are some ancient cities in which you
have a British city, and over that the foundations of a Roman city; and
over that a Saxon city, and over that again a modern city, so in these
localities of which I am speaking, you have the accumulations of the
foundations of the houses, if I may use the term, of nation after nation
of these coral polypes; and these accumulations may cover a very
considerable space, and may rise in the course of time from the bottom
to the surface of the sea.
Mariners have a name which they apply to all sorts of obstacles
consisting of hard and rocky matter which comes in their way in the
course of their navigation; they call such obstacles "reefs," and they
have long been in the habit of calling the particular kind of reef,
which is formed by the accumulation of the skeletons of dead corals, by
the name of "coral reefs," therefore, those parts of the world in which
these accumulations occur have been termed by them "coral reef areas,"
or regions in which coral reefs are found.
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