" During these excursions of ours to
the bottom of the sea, we began to get an insight into the manners and
customs of its inhabitants, and to make discoveries of wonderful
things, the like of which we never before conceived. Among other
things, we were deeply interested with the operations of the little
coral insect which, I was informed by Jack, is supposed to have
entirely constructed many of the numerous islands in the Pacific Ocean.
And certainly, when we considered the great reef which these insects
had formed round the island on which we were cast, and observed their
ceaseless activity in building their myriad cells, it did at first seem
as if this might be true; but then, again, when I looked at the
mountains of the island, and reflected that there were thousands of
such, many of them much higher, in the South Seas, I doubted that there
must be some mistake here. But more of this hereafter.
I also became much taken up with the manners and appearance of the
anemones, and star-fish, and crabs, and sea-urchins, and such-like
creatures; and was not content with watching those I saw during my
dives in the Water Garden, but I must needs scoop out a hole in the
coral rock close to it, which I filled with salt water, and stocked
with sundry specimens of anemones and shell-fish, in order to watch
more closely how they were in the habit of passing their time. Our
burning-glass also now became a great treasure to me, as it enabled me
to magnify, and so to perceive more clearly the forms and actions of
these curious creatures of the deep.
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