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Coral, for its Subſtance is like that of Stones: Its Colour is red, and its Shape cylindrical, in ſome ſort reſembling a Root. It grows in the Sea.
may be proper to premiſe here, that it was of abſolute neceſſity to the ſupporting that Gentleman's Syſtem of the Solution of Foſſils at the Deluge, that this ſhould be proved to be one, becauſe he gives it as a Certainty, that all the foſſile Corals have been in a State of Solution; which, had they ever been of another Nature, they could not, according to his own Syſtem, have been. If his Syſtem be juſt in this Point, I have Proofs, that, whatever he might conclude from it, it really makes for the antient Opinion; for, whatever may have been the Caſe in regard to the foſſile Corals in the Doctor's Cabinet, I have one which I very lately took up from 25 Feet deep in a Clay-pit in the Neighbourhood of London: Which ſhews evidently, that it never has been in a State of Solution, and muſt have been therefore, according to his own Syſtem, an organized Body; for there are Numbers of ſmall Balani affixed on it, and that not immerſed in, or laid on it in irregular and uncertain Poſtures (as muſt have been the Caſe, if they had accidentally been lodged in and on it at the Time of its concreting in the Waters of the Deluge) but fixed in the very Manner in which they are found when living and in their natural Poſture: This it is impoſſible they ſhould be, if ever they had been diſlodged from it; as they muſt have been, if ever it had been in a State of Solution. Nor are we to imagine, that the foſſile Corals have been in a State of Solution, becauſe they have often very different Matter from the Coralline in their Conſtitution; nay, ſometimes ſeem almoſt wholly compoſed of ſuch: For we frequently find foſſile Wood, which, according to that Gentleman's own Syſtem, never has been in a State of Solution, ſaturated in like manner with the Matter of the common Pyrites, and ſometimes ſeeming wholly compoſed of it. And this very Specimen of Coral of mine, which, it is evident, never has been in a State of Solution, is yet almoſt wholly converted into an Agate.
To this it may be added, that after all the Pains that Gentleman has taken to prove that Corals are Foſſils, and formed by mere Appoſition of Corpuſcles, not by Organization; his chemical Analyſis of red Coral, has brought him to a Neceſſity of allowing, that there is ſomething of another Nature in them; And how can he imagine this came there? When I
