While cruising along only a few cable lengths from the underpinning of Reao Island, I marveled at the gigantic piece of work accomplished by these microscopic laborers. These walls were the express achievements of madrepores known by the names fire coral, finger coral, star coral, and stony coral. These polyps grow exclusively in the agitated strata at the surface of the sea, and so it's in the upper reaches that they begin these substructures, which sink little by little together with the secreted rubble binding them. This, at least, is the theory of Mr. Charles Darwin, who thus explains the formation of atolls--a theory superior, in my view, to the one that says these madreporic edifices sit on the summits of mountains or volcanoes submerged a few feet below sea level.
Het eiland Clermont-Tonnerre op eenige kabellengten naderende, bewonderde ik dit reuzenwerk dat door die microscopisch kleine diertjes gemaakt was: ik kon die zonderlinge muren van nabij beschouwen, want onmiddellijk er naast peilden wij meer dan 300 meter; deze prachtige kalkformatie schitterde in ons electriek licht.