. Journal of researches into the natural history and geology of the countries visited during the voyage round the world of 'Beagle,' under the command of Captain Fitz Roy. e rank grass in a churchyard ; both are nourished byputrid exhalations ; the one speaks ol death* past, and theother too often of death to come. XXI S1XGULAR REEF 529 The most curious object which I saw in this neighbour-hood was the reef that forms the harbour. I doubt whether inthe whole world any other natural structure has so artificial It runs for a length of several miles in anabsolutely straight
. Journal of researches into the natural history and geology of the countries visited during the voyage round the world of 'Beagle,' under the command of Captain Fitz Roy. e rank grass in a churchyard ; both are nourished byputrid exhalations ; the one speaks ol death* past, and theother too often of death to come. XXI S1XGULAR REEF 529 The most curious object which I saw in this neighbour-hood was the reef that forms the harbour. I doubt whether inthe whole world any other natural structure has so artificial It runs for a length of several miles in anabsolutely straight line, parallel to and not far distant fromthe shore. It varies in width from thirty to sixty yards, andits surface is level and smooth ; it is composed of obscurely-stratified hard sandstone. At high water the waves breakover it ; at low water its summit is left dry, and it might thenbe mistaken for a breakwater erected by Cyclopean this coast the currents of the sea tend to throw up in frontof the land long spits and bars of loose sand, and on one ofthese part of the town of Pernambuco stands. In formertimes a long spit of this nature seems to have become con-. CICADA HOMOPTERA. solidated by the percolation of calcareous matter, and after-wards to have been gradually upheaved ; the outer and looseparts during this process having been worn away by the actionof the sea, and the solid nucleus left as we now see night and day the waves of the open Atlantic, turbidwith sediment, are driven against the steep outside edges ofthis wall of stone, yet the oldest pilots know of no tradition ofany change in its appearance. This durability is much themost curious fact in its history ; it is due to a tough layer, afew inches thick, of calcareous matter, wholly formed by thesuccessive growth and death of the small shells of Serpulae,together with some few barnacles and nulliporae. Thesenulliporae, which are hard, very simply-organised sea-plants,play an analogous and i
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