is decidedly an error.

They pro

duce an immense amount of carbonate of lime in beautiful forms, but it is with no effort on their part. It is all secreted as our bones are secreted, and the little creature does nothing but extend its tiny tentacles in the blue, warm waters of the tropics, and live to eat. With all this, it has been a more powerful agent in building up the globe than all other animals put together.

Those who are at all familiar with the narratives of Captain Cook and succeeding early navigators, will remember that they were often able to announce the presence of a coral island long before it became visible, because of the clouds which gathered over it in an otherwise clear sky. This arose from the fact that the land absorbs heat quicker than the water, ascending currents result, and moisture is carried up and condensed into clouds.

The Pacific islands are of two kinds :-(1.) Those which attain a low elevation from seven to (rarely) one hundred feet above the level of

the sea; and (2.) Those which

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attain to elevations of ten thousand feet and upwards. The low islands are the most striking. Their beaches are of an intense glistering white, and behind them comes the luxuriant verdure of tropical trees. lagoon of quiet water may lie within this, then another band of verdure, and within all the rich blue waters of the ocean. It frequently happens that the ocean outside the island will be from twelve to fifteen thousand feet in depth. But within the reefs it is only a few fathoms. Clearly then the island or reef thus presented must rise like a tower from the ocean's bed, and have a slight depression at its summit. Many of these are as much as fifty miles across.

The island of Tahiti is a serviceable example of the more elevated islands. It rises from seven to eight thousand feet above the level of the sea. It has no lagoon in its centre, but a crater is found there. The water around the island is very deep, and it is probable that it rises some eighteen thousand feet from the bed of the ocean.

Now the remarkable structures of which these lower islands are examples, are found upon close examination to be made entirely of animal remains. That is to say, generation after generation of coral polyps have lived, built up their exquisite dwellings, died, and new generations have taken their place. The loftier ones on the contrary are purely volcanic in their origin.

The forms taken by the coral buildings are very remarkable, as any one may see by a glance in one of our public museums. Some are spreading and branched like a tree, while others are close and compact. The general colour of the coral trunk is either red or white; and it is in the little holes in the branches of the trunk that the tiny builders live. When they are expanded, they wear all the appearance of delicate white flowers, with eight rays spread out, and ornamented at times with a fringe of fine fila

hundred fathoms. The best coral is found in the shallowest waters. Its ratio of growth is that of its depth. It will increase in size a foot in eight years in shallow water, with a hot sun; but it will take thirty years to do the same at a depth of a hundred fathoms. The coral reefs of Florida afford a good example. At one hundred and twenty feet below the surface, we find thirty feet of solid coral rock; then successively two species of coral that affect the respective depths; and at about ten feet below the surface, we come upon the palmata, or handshaped coral. In the shallow mud between the reefs and the continent, there are multitudes of branching corals of the most beautiful forms, colours, and delicacy of structure.

How the islands have risen above the water-level is an interesting question. The animals can and do build up to high-water level, and they retain-like the anemoneswater enough to serve their necessities during the recess of the tide and until its return. The islands are mostly ring-formed. The reason doubtless is that they are built upon volcanic pe aks. They were originally reefs around the volcanoes, but by the subsidence of the ocean bed the volcanoes gradually sunk. The reefs were carried down also, but so slowly that the coral animals could keep pace upwards with the sinking of the mountain, and so, in the place of the mountain peak, we now have the lagoon. That this is the explanation is certain, for reefs are found at a depth of one thousand seven hundred feet, and the coral cannot live at a greater depth than a hundred fathoms; so subsidence alone can account for its presence at such great depths.

There are in the Pacific Ocean alone two hundred and ninety of these islands, giving an area of

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twenty thousand square miles. reef has been built up along the shores of New Caledonia for a length of four hundred miles, and another which runs along the northeast coast of Australia for a thousand miles.

The vegetation on these islands is due to seeds floating in the sea, or dropped by birds. This accounts for the want of variety in the vegetation they support; but what is produced is most luxuriant.

At present, the coral animal is confined to a narrow area of the globe. But in older geological times the temperature of the globe must have been more equal, since coral formations cover a very large part of the earth's surface.

As far back as the songs of Orpheus we find descriptions of the beauties of coral. It has been used for decorative purposes in all ages and by all people, civilized or barbaric, who could procure it, and it was never so valuable in some of its forms as now; for the more delicately coloured and hard specimens used as gems are as highly prized as diamonds. But it is curious for how many centuries man was wholly ignorant of its true nature. Some believed it to be a simple mineral; but the most generally accepted view was that which regarded it as a marine shrub. Pliny believed this; and to account for its hardness, supposed that it became indurated as soon as it was brought out of the ocean into the air. Tournefort gave coral an exact place in the vegetable kingdom. He puts it in a special section as one of the marine plants, the flowers and fruits of which are generally unknown. In the eighteenth century an Italian count saw the coral polyps, and at once took them for flowers with eight petals; and so it was supposed that the vegetable

nature of coral was confirmed. But some little time after, a French physician convinced himself that they were distinct animals; and he disclosed the fact to the Academy of Sciences. But they were most

unwilling to receive it.

Indeed

it was solemnly rejected at first; but at length the truth became apparent, and the coral polyp was placed in its true position in the organic series.

W. H. D.

BY J. R. S.

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WE have followed Cowper to a period of life when in most men the character and habits are so far fixed as to resist change, and we have seen that after twelve years spent in the profession of the law he had no prospect of attaining a competence by his own exertions, while he had dissipated precious hours in a way he could but look back upon regretfully. Though, in a communication to a friend, he could assume a degree of cheerfulness, and say that he had made a resolution never to be melancholy while he had " hundred pounds to keep up his spirits," the probabilities seemed to be that his resources must soon fall below that amount, and, in spite of all resolutions, his constitutional tendency to depression of spirits. would show itself whenever he was alone. In 1763, he was evidently endeavouring to dispel his gloom by forcing himself more into the society of men of some literary ability, but lacking in Christian principle and moral purity. Like one of the personages depicted in his poem "Truth" Cowper spent much time in reading, yet there was one Volume that seldom left his shelf:

"The Bible only stands neglected there, Though that of all most worthy of his

CLIFFORD.

But the time of awakening drew near. Cowper knew precisely what patronage was in the power of his friends, and that they only waited opportunity. Two gentlemen died, nearly at the same time, placing valuable offices in the gift of Major Cowper. It was in the Spring, just as the Temple Gardens were beginning to put on their green array, that the Major, cousin to our poet, called upon him in the Temple, and taking him for a walk in the Gardens, offered the profitable place of Reading Clerk and Clerk to the Committees in the House of Lords, which would give him an adequate provision for life, with no very laborious duties. At the moment, Cowper accepted the offer, but, as he tells us,

"received a dagger in his heart;" he was overwhelmed with apprehensions that he should be unable to perform the tasks which lay before him. Undoubtedly the publicity of his duties made them formidable to a man liable to nervous hesitancy, and his fancy exaggerated the difficulty. Hence, instead of going back to his chambers as elated as his cousin hoped, Cowper was clouded with all the vexation one must feel before whose sight there hangs a splendid prize which he is unable to grasp. A week of thought brought him no new light upon the matter, his agitation increasing with his hesitancy,

between the folly of casting away the only chance he had of being well provided for, and the suffering involved in retaining it. "A loophole of escape" presented itself-the Major had mentioned that he was about to give the Clerkship of the Journals to his friend Arnold-could not an exchange be effected? Cowper would gladly have contented himself with a post which, yielding less money, had the advantage of privacy. This was agreed to, but Cowper's peace of mind was to receive a more alarming shock. A dispute arose with regard to Major Cowper's right to nominate; other persons brought forward a rival candidate, and it was decided that the Major's nominee must appear at the bar of the House to have his competency publicly tested. This was to Cowper a terrific prospect his vivid description of his emotions, though written years after, shows how much he must have suffered in the summer months of 1763. "Those persons," said he, "whose spirits are formed like mine, to whom a public exhibition of themselves is mortal poison, may have some idea of the horror of my situation; others can have none. Quiet forsook me by day, and sleep by night, a finger raised against me was more than I could stand against."

To

We can well imagine that of true sympathy he got little from relatives or friends, since at that day nervous affections were scarcely understood even by medical men. ordinary individuals, Cowper's peculiar fears appeared ridiculous, and while some may have blamed him for a lack of courage and resolution, others would pronounce him a fool.

But at this period, Cowper's acquaintance with true religion was only sufficient to make him miserable. His conscience was not callous, but of the consolatory and invigorating agencies of the Gospel he

knew nothing. Religion would have helped his escape from the entanglement. Cowper resolved to pursue the struggle, because by a withdrawal from the office ere the examination came on, he was, in a manner, acknowledging his own unfitness and dishonouring the Major by not contesting his right to nominate, which seemed an ungrateful return for his kindness. It was needful he should study the Journals of the House, so he went there day after day, turning over the pages in a state of mental bewilderment and distress which rendered his task fruitless. He was like a man under the influence of waking nightmare, and whether in his chambers, in the House of Lords, or walking to and fro, the apprehension of his disgraceful failure was still intolerable, yet irremovable. A few weeks of such agitation have unsettled many an intellect; but with all his liability to singular aberrations, Cowper had not a weak brain.

After an autumn holiday at Margate Cowper went back to London much improved in health, and had he at once resigned the Clerkship, all farther evil consequences might have been averted. But he recom

menced the painful struggle, and ere the Autumn fogs shrouded the city in gloom, he had begun to wish that illness or insanity might prevent his being publicly rejected for incompetency. He put together a set of prayers, which he repeated for a time, to cast them aside as useless. The dread idea of committing suicide presented itself to his intellect as it became gradually affected; and though the love of life, with a concurrence of remarkable interruptions, which he details in his autobiographic fragment, frustrated his first attempts, on the morning of the day on which he was to appear in the House of Lords, he made

a second, which was also unsuccessful. The garter, by which he had suspended himself, snapped when he was on the point of suffocation, and he staggered back into bed, and at last sent his laundress to fetch

Major Cowper. His exclamation of course was, "My dear Cowper, you cannot hold the office at this rate; and he started at once to terminate the transaction.

Up to this time, remorse for his past life had not touched Cowper's heart; now, however, he began to think over his many misdeeds, with all their aggravations, closing with his suicidal attempts. The conclusion he arrived at was one which others, smarting under the arrows of conviction, have also adopted for awhile, though not insane, as Cowper undoubtedly to some extent was. Thinking he had been guilty of the unpardonable sin, though he took up his Bible he saw nothing that inspired hope. The narrative of our Lord's miracle wrought on the barren fig-tree inflicted intense misery on him, for he fancied that the curse was uttered with express reference to his own case. In this, and other circumstances recorded, we perceive the workings of mental delusion, yet we need not hesitate to admit that Satan was allowed, for a time, to exert his power on Cowper, till the "sifting" was complete. He shunned the streets, he says, imagining that his conscience accused him audibly, and that therefore people would jeer him. In one of his longer poems the poet aptly portrays his own condition during these sad hours:

"His eyes are sunk, arms folded, head reclined;

Those awful syllables-Hell, Death and Sin,

Though whispered, plainly tell what works within,

That conscience there performs her proper part,

And writes a Doomsday sentence on his heart.

Forsaking, and forsaken of all friends, He now perceives where earthly pleasure ends:

Hard task! for one who lately knew

no care,

And harder still as learnt beneath despair:

His hours no longer pass unmarked away,

A dark importance saddens every day; He hears the notice of the clock, perplexed,

And cries, 'Perhaps eternity strikes next!'

Sweet music is no longer music here, And laughter sounds like madness in his ear."

In his extremity, Cowper sent for the Rev. Martin Madan, the chaplain of the Lock Hospital, a relative by marriage, and one of the prominent "Methodists" of the day. For a short space Cowper seemed calmed, while this clergyman explained the nature of the Atonement and urged him to accept a free salvation. But he speedily returned to the belief that, invaluable as is the Gospel to those who can embrace it, he had ceased to have any right to apply its promises to himself.

Mark

"Friends and ministers said much The Gospel to enforce ; But my blindness still was such I chose a legal course :" thus he writes in a hymn which, though not minutely corresponding to the incidents of his conversion, evidently bears evidently bears upon it. ing the progress of bodily and mental malady, Cowper's friends determined to place him under the care of Dr. Cotton, at St. Alban's. In after times, Cowper spoke of it as a matter of much thankfulness that he was taken to this doctor's establishment, where he had tender, yet firm treatment, under the hands of a really good as well as able man. The worthy doctor had written works in prose and verse which had at the time a measure of fame.