This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1871 edition. Excerpt: ... CORAL. HE following papers are really what they profess to be, "Waifs and Strays." They are arranged in no systematic order, nor upon any definite plan. They come before the reader as "Waifs and Strays" from the ocean come ashore--drifted or floated at the pleasure of winds and waves. Sometimes they ...
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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1871 edition. Excerpt: ... CORAL. HE following papers are really what they profess to be, "Waifs and Strays." They are arranged in no systematic order, nor upon any definite plan. They come before the reader as "Waifs and Strays" from the ocean come ashore--drifted or floated at the pleasure of winds and waves. Sometimes they are answers to actual inquiries; sometimes they were written because the subject had been brought accidentally under the writer's notice; sometimes because she desired to awaken an interest in others for pursuits which have afforded so much pleasure to herself. Returning to the royal "we" of authors, our hope is, that as the waifs and strays of nature are all the more acceptable to the shore wanderers from their unclassified variety, so ours may, from a similar cause, be all the more likely to catch the attention of restless imaginative youth. In which trust we offer our readers our first attempt, B namely, on Coral, for in speaking of it, we are talking to them of a thing they know well by sight and touch already. Most children possess or have seen coral necklaces, or little coral charms, or perhaps even one of the fine old coral rattles given to babies to rub against their poor gums in teething-pain, and which, being ornamented with silver bells, is a favourite toy, even after the tooth is cut, and the coral end is not wanted. Well then, this coral--the pretty pink or red stuff of which trinkets are made--is a substance which in common parlance, and correctly, people say "grows" under water in several seas; the Mediterranean chiefly, but also in the Red Sea, Persian Gulf, and some others. It grows in a tree-like, i.e. branched manner, in little stiff bushes on the rocks at the bottom of these seas, or from the roofs and sides of submarine...
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