Page:Aspects of nature in different lands and different climates; with scientific elucidations (IA b29329668 0002).pdf/83

 *[Footnote: that of light almost equally so; and the existence of numerous Infusoria at great depths shews that the polypifers would not want for food.

In opposition to the hitherto generally received opinion of the entire absence of organic life in the Dead Sea, it is deserving of notice that my friend and fellow labourer, M. Valenciennes, has received through the Marquis Charles de l'Escalopier, and also the French consul Botta, fine specimens of Porites elongata from the Dead Sea. This fact is the more interesting because this species is not found in the Mediterranean, but belongs to the Red Sea, which, according to Valenciennes, has but few organic forms in common with the Mediterranean. I have before remarked that in France a sea fish, a species of Pleuronectes, advances far up the rivers into the interior of the country, thus becoming accustomed to gill-respiration in fresh water; so we find that the coral-animal above spoken of, the Porites elongata of Lamarck, has a not less remarkable flexibility of organisation, since it lives in the Dead Sea, which is over-saturated with salt, and in the open ocean near the Seychelle Islands. (See my Asie Centrale, T. ii. p. 517.)

According to the most recent chemical analyses made by the younger Silliman, the genus Porites, as well as many other cellular polypifers, (Madrepores, Andræas, and Meandrinas of Ceylon and the Bermudas), contain, besides 92-95 per cent. of carbonate of lime and magnesia, some fluoric and phosphoric acids. (See p. 124-131 of "Structure and Classification of Zoophytes," by James Dana, Geologist of the United States' Exploring Expedition, under the command]*