A paper on “Corals & Coral Islands” being the third of the series on the “Lower Forms of Animal Life” was read by Mr. J.M. Kirk.

In the course of his paper, Mr. Kirk said that from remote times efforts were made to ascertain the true nature of Coral. The older naturalists considered it a Plant but the true animal nature of coral cannot now be doubted. It is not more difficult to understand that a Polyp should form structures of stone (Carbonate of Lime) than that the quadruped should form its bones or the mollusk its shell. The processes & the result are similar.

The Polyp may be conveniently compared with the Garden Aster, the expanding florets of the latter representing the tentacles. The coral making Polyps have most of the characteristics of the sea-anemone, their chief striking peculiarities depending upon the suction of coral, making them fixed species & also on the extent to which the multiply by lends in imitation of plants.

Specimens & drawings of a large number of varieties were here shown & described including examples of mushroom corals which are so often thought to be petrified Fungi. The red coral of commerce is found in the Mediterranean & the Red Sea usually at depths varying from 6 or 7 to 60 or even 100 fathoms, seldom much deeper. The most beautiful is that found in shallow water. The coral fishing grounds are dragged only once in about 10 years so as to allow of the growth of a fresh crop. Pale Coral is the most highly prized being worth from “80 to £200 per ounce. Chemically coral consists almost entirely of Carbonate of lime.

Coral Reefs & Coral Islands are structured of the same kind under somewhat different conditions, in fact a Coral Island has been a Coral Reef through a large part of its history & is still so so over much of its area. Coral Islands are isolated Reefs whilst Coral Reefs are borders or fringes stretching along the edges of Islands & continents. In the still waters between the islands & the reef are found the corals in their greatest perfection. It is supposed by modern writers that Coral Islands have originated from reefs which encircled ordinary islands the chain of surrounding coral having been built upwards as the land in the centre subsided.