notwithstanding the inequality of arms. There are to be met here persons who will recount these combats as faithfully as ocular witnesses. One good lady, who is not credulous, has related some fine things to me on the subject. It is generally on the borders of a river that the hostile meeting takes place: the couresse waylays the serpent, seizes it by the middle of the body and drags it into the stream; or else it is seen to quit the combat for the purpose of rubbing itself on some kind of grass, which heels its own wounds, revives its strength, and enfeebles the serpent. Moreau de Jonnès, who knows all, goes so far as even to indicate these marvellous plants by their botanic names: they are the milky stalks of the Euphorbia hirta, Euphorbia pilulisera, Euphorbia graminea. The combat is followed by a banquet-the couresse, small as it is, eats up the serpent, large as it is. It has been seen.-Livy is not more precise when he relates the combats of the Horatii and the Curiatii; nor the Bible that of David and Goliath. Fortunate antipathy, were it but true! the couresse would be for Martinique the antidote of the serpent. Man is disposed to believe that, by a kind of antagonism in nature, the remedy is always placed by the side of the evil. "The serpents have for enemies, the ants, which devour it when it has recently changed its skin; also the clibros (boa) and couresses (snakes), which kill the serpent by striking it on the head, and then swallow it. During this exterminating battle, which would appear to hold out the victory to the serpent, each time that the couresse receives a wound, it runs off and rolls upon the leaves of the cotton or piedpoule, and then returns to the charge, and fights until the enemy surrenders. Then the couresse swallows up the serpent head-foremost." (Beaucé's Notice sur Sainte-Lucie.)* (To be continued.) THE CORAL REEFS AND THE RECENTLY-THREADED MAZES OF TORRES STRAITS. I saw the living pile ascend Still dying upwards as their labours closed.- Frail were their frames, ephemeral their lives, Life's needful functions-food, exertion, rest- Were overruled to carry on the process, * M. Duchatel writes me-"I have seen the combat of the couresse and the serpent: the latter always retreats, whilst the other seizes and endeavours to stifle it in its folds. When bitten, the couresse runs to a grass called cheveux béqués, upon which it rolls itself and then returns to the fight. Descending to their base in ocean gloom. Her giant statues, wrought from rocks of granite, As this stupendous mound of catacombs, Fill'd with dry mummies of the builder worms. So sings Montgomery, who leads his readers to suppose that the formation of a coral island is the work of myriads of polypes, just as a honeycomb is that of a swarm of bees. But the bee builds her cell, and the bird her nest, according to instinct. They are architects according to plans which they cannot vary. There is nothing of the kind in the construction of coral rock; in fact, the polype has for this purpose neither plan, nor labour, nor skill: the coral being no more its work than feathers can be said to be the work of a bird, or that wonderful machine, the human hand, to be the production of its possessor. Coral is a calcareous exudation from the surface of a polype which secretes lime and carbonic acid from the sea, and it petrifies under the action of the wave, pursuant to certain general laws, according to the species. The formation of rock, in short, is the condition of coral life. Coral reefs are principally formed by a few species of the genera Porites, Astrea, and Millepora. These reefs are classified under three distinct heads, viz. 1. Lagoon islands, or atolls. 2. Barrier, or encircling reefs. 3. Fringing, or shore reefs. Lagoon Islands-Many intertropical islands, both in the Pacific and Indian Occans, present the appearance of a vast ring of coral rock, called an Atoll. This ring is usually low, sometimes verdant, and with a dazzling white beach on the inside. On the outside it is washed by the foaming ocean; and it contains in its middle a calm, bright, green, salt-water lake, sometimes more than forty fathoms deep. This circular Atoll, or Lagoon Island, increases only on the outer edge, where it is unceasingly lashed by the waves. Other kinds of coral, which are not reef-forming polypes, grow in the inside lake. Barrier Reefs.-Conceive an island like New Caledonia to be in the middle of the salt-water lake of a vast Atoll; then the outside ring of coral rock will be termed its Barrier Reef. But, as the coralline animals which occasion such extensive changes in the ocean do not thrive well but in the vicinity of the Torrid Zone, we have the tropical coasts of vast islands, such as New Holland, often girt at a small distance by a snow-white line of breakers, crowned here and there by a verdant islet, and marking the barrier of coral that separates the smooth waters of a lagoon-like channel from the waves of the open sea. Fringing or Shore Reefs differ from Barrier Reefs, in extending from the shore in comparatively shallow water where the sea is not turbid, and in not having within them a broad channel of deep water. But it is easy to perceive that these three kinds of coral formation pass into each other. Thus the outside of a Barrier Reef may often be called without impropriety a Fringing Reef, and a Barrier Reef is often the same as the coral ring which environs the lagoon of an Atoll. The most ordinary explanation of the remarkable form of an Atoll was, that it was the crater of a volcano which had risen from some unfathomable depth of the ocean. But the enormous size of such submarine craters was too preposterous to be credited; and the precipitous slope of both sides of a Barrier Reef was not to be explained so easily, since it was difficult to comprehend why the coral polypes should not grow in all directions, provided the foundation rock was stable, and the animals could live at all depths. Besides, New Caledonia and many other islands presenting Barrier Reefs are composed of geological formations, that set aside every notion of their being volcanic craters. Mr. Charles Darwin (the scientific companion of Captain Fitz Roy in his voyage of discovery), seeing therefore the manifold objections to this old theory, has lately proposed another explanation of the facts. According to hin, there are many large tracts of ocean, without any high land, interspersed with reefs and islets, formed by the growth of those kinds of coral which cannot live at great depths; and the existence of these reefs and low islets in such numbers, and at such distant points, is quite inexplicable, except on the theory that the bases on which the coral reefs first became attached, slowly and successively subsided beneath the level of the sea, whilst the polypes continued to grow upwards. Mr. Darwin therefore supposes a mountainous district, thrown up by volcanic action or otherwise, to be situated on a subsiding area. "If this subsiding area be under the ocean, the summit of the mountain may appear an island more or less conical. Now, as the island sinks down either a few feet at a time or quite insensibly, we may safely infer from what we know of the conditions favourable to the growth of coral, that the living masses bathed by the surf on the margin of the reef will soon regain the surface. The water, however, will encroach little by little on the shore; the island becoming lower and smaller, and the space between the edge of the reef and the beach proportionally larger. The width of the reef and its slope, both on the outer and inner side, will have been determined by the growing powers of the polypes under the conditions (for instance, the force of the breakers and the currents) to which they have been exposed. It is evident, that a line drawn perpendicularly down from the outer edge of the new reef to the foundation of solid rock, exceeds by as many feet as there have been feet of subsidence, that small limit of depth at which the coral polypes can live; the coral, as the whole sank down, having grown up from 420 THE CORAL REEFS, ETC. OF TORRES STRAITS. a basis formed of other corals and their consolidated fragments. If, instead of such an island as we have supposed, the shore of a continent fringed by a reef had subsided, a great Barrier Reef like that of the north-east coast of Australia would have necessarily resulted, and it would have been separated from the main land by a deep smooth-water channel, broad in proportion to the amount of subsidence, and to the less or greater inclination of the neighbouring coast land.” It is obvious, however, that to make the published theory of Mr. Darwin apply to the Great Barrier Reef of New Holland, two facts are necessary to be proved; namely, 1. This asserted slow and gradual subsidence of the north-east coast of Australia; and 2. That the reefforming polypes cannot live beyond a certain depth from the surface of the ocean. Captain Black wood, and the officers of his expedition, had kindly promised a friend to make such experiments as might bring these two assertions-the truth of which is so essential for Darwin's theoryto the test of observation; but I regret to say, that various obstacles to such researches have occurred, so that the matter still remains coram judice. I subjoin an extract from Captain Blackwood's letter, as it contains other interesting information :— 66 "H. M. S. Fly, 23rd September, 1814. Going to Singapore. "We found the stone of Raine's Island good, abundance of shells for our lime, and a sound foundation for the building. Having these necessary materials, we went to work with forty stout hands, and within four months we had forty-five feet of masonry run up in the shape of a tower; having its diameter at base thirty feet, ditto at top twenty-seven feet. Thickness of the wall at base, five feet three inches; thickness at top, three feet. This tower we surmounted with a substantial circular roof fifteen feet in height, making a total of seventy-five feet above low-water mark (including the height of the rock on which the tower is based), and, therefore, it is plainly visible at a distance of fourteen miles from the masthead of a ship. At this distance, according to measurement, we saw it constantly. We have been fortunate enough to have had no accident, and the prisoners lent us by Sir George Gipps worked admirably. Ince was Governor of the island, and in his glory among birds, fish, and shells. But, I regret to inform you, that we could not make out our experiments on the depth of living coral, owing to the difficulty, and indeed impossibility, of encountering the surf and finding a convenient spot for experimenting. We have, however, laid down a safe track for the ships that enter the Barrier Reef by the beacon on Raine's Island, to sail in towards the main land; and I believe, therefore, that now very few accidents are likely to happen, the high road and milestones being so accurately laid down. I could not get to New Guinea, for it was better to do little and do that little well. We are now becalmed under a vertical sun, with our head turned towards Singapore, where we go to refit; and then, the commencement of next year, we repair back to Torres Straits-examine New Guinea and the adjoining islands, and hope to reach Sydney about June or July. All on board are well, but nearly tired of coral reefs. Nothing very new or various in the way of Natural History has been obtained this season, for the great part of which, indeed, we have been at anchor sixty miles from the land. We have had some good astronomical observations. An occultation of Venus was clearly visible with a pocket telescope at noonday, in 11 deg. South; and I believe our results have been so satisfactory in their agreements, that we may consider the beacon on Raine's Island as placed in long. 144 deg. 7 min. East, and in lat. 11 deg. 35 min. 50 sec.; for this being an important point to determine, much pains were taken towards that result." SKETCHES OF GRENADA SCENERY. It is the obvious interest of England that the Australian Colonies She consulted, therefore, her own should be wealthy and prosperous. objects in despatching an expedition to explore Torres Straits; but we are, nevertheless, deeply obliged to her. Other expeditions of discovery have been sent out for the general benefit of mankind, and for the sake of increasing the common stock of human knowledge; but the mission of Captain Blackwood was more peculiarly for the advantage of the Australian Colonies. Every one who has paid the slightest attention to the subject must be convinced that ere long a regular steam navigation will prevail between New South Wales and India-that our principal communication with the mother-country must take place through this channel, and that even now the dangers of Torres Straits are as nothing in comparison with the perils which formerly attended every attempt to thread that labyrinth of coral. This, after all, is a beautiful world, did we know how to enjoy it. Accompany me in imagination to some island in Torres Straits. Look at that rock on which the heavy surf is breaking; how regularly it is covered with minute sculptured stars, in the centre of each of which you Watch the minute atom of animated translucid may discover a pore. jelly which marks the pore, and see how it extends its tiny arms on every side; on the slightest touch it retracts them within the hole. That is the animal which occasions all those difficulties to the path of By means of that the lord of the creation over the tropical seas. gelatinous polype vast islands of rock are continually in process of Indeed it is only formation amid the stormiest waves of the ocean. where the surf breaks with its greatest force that the reef coral polype It hates a calm-your true reef polype having, can be said to thrive. like other performers of great deeds, a thorough contempt for the ease and tranquillity which so often render officials fat, sleepy, and apoplectic. -Correspondent of the Sydney Atlas. SKETCHES OF GRENADA SCENERY. To the Editor of "Simmonds's Colonial Magazine.” SIR,The following "Sketches of Grenada Scenery" were originally written for the pages of "The Grenada Magazine and Monthly Miscellany," printed in this island some years back by Mr. William E. Baker, the then Editor and Proprietor of "The St. George's Chronicle." Considering that they are worthy of a better fate than that which they obtained in the pages of what proved a mere ephemeral publication-the Magazine not having existed beyond its third number-I forward them to you, in the hope that they may be favoured with a place in your "COLONIAL MAGAZINE," where they may meet the eye of some of the many who occasionally visit our shores in those "leviathans of the deep," the steamships of the R. M. S. P. Company. Our scenery is not generally known, and these "Sketches" will be interesting to the |