“The lines, wood, and irons employed in the coral fisheries are called the engine; it consists of a cross of wood formed of two bars strongly lashed or bolted together at their centre; below this a great stone is attached, which bears the lines, arranged in the form of a sac. These lines have great meshes, loosely knotted together, resembling the well-known swab.
CORAL FISHING.
“The apparatus carries thirty of these sacs, which are intended to grapple all they come in contact with at the bottom of the sea. They are spread out in all directions by the movement of the boat. The coral is known to attach itself to the summit of a rock, and to develop itself, forming banks there, and it is to these rocks that the swab attaches itself so as to tear up the precious harvest. Experience, which in time becomes almost intuitive, guides the Italian fisher in discovering the coral banks....
“When the padrone thinks he has reached a coral bank, he throws his engine overboard. As soon as the apparatus is fairly at the bottom the speed of the vessel is slacked, [pg 74]the capstan is manned by six or eight men, while the others guide the helm and trim the sails. Two forces are thus brought to act upon the lines, the horizontal action of the vessel and the vertical action of the capstan. In consequence of the many inequalities of the rocky bottom, the engine advances by jerks, the vessel yielding more or less according to the concussion caused by the action of the capstan or sail. The engine seizes upon the rugged rocks at the bottom, and raises them to let them fall again. In this manner the swab, floating about, penetrates beneath the rocks where the coral is found, and is hooked on to it. To fix the lines upon the coral and bring them home is a work of very great labour. The engine long resists the most energetic and repeated efforts of the crew, who, exposed half naked to the burning sun of the Mediterranean, work the capstan to which the cable and engine are attached, while the padrone urges and excites them to increased exertion; the sailors meanwhile trim the sails, and sing with a slow and monotonous tone a song, the words of which improvise in a sort of psalmody the names of the saints most revered among the seafaring Italian population.
“The lines are finally brought home, tearing or breaking blocks of rock, sometimes of enormous size, which are brought on board. The cross is now placed on the side of the vessel, the lines are arranged on the deck, and the crew occupy themselves in gathering the results of their labour. The coral is gathered together, the branches of the precious alcyonarian are cleansed and divested of the shells and other parasitic products which accompany them; finally, the produce is carried to and sold in the ports of Messina, Naples, Genoa, or Leghorn, where the workers in jewellery purchase them. Behold, fair reader, with what hard labour, fatigue, and peril, the elegant bijouterie with which you are decked is torn from the deepest bed of the ocean.” Coral is worth from as little as two or three shillings a ton to as high as £10 sterling per pound.
Although the corals of the so-called coral islands are merely good as curiosities, they are very interesting in a scientific and artistic point of view. Darwin[28] has reasoned very conclusively on the formation of the reefs. He says:—“The earlier voyagers fancied that the coral-building animals instinctively built up their great corals to afford themselves protection in the inner parts; but so far is this from the truth, that those massive kinds to whose growth on the exposed outer shores the very existence of the reef depends cannot live within the lagoon, where other delicately-branching kinds flourish.” Moreover, in this view, many species of distinct genera and families are supposed to combine for one end; and of such a combination not a single instance can be found in the whole of Nature. The theory that has been most generally received is that atolls are based on submarine craters, but when the form and size of some of them are considered this idea loses its plausible character. Thus, the Suadiva atoll is forty-four geographical miles in diameter in one line by thirty-four in another; Rimsky is fifty-four by twenty miles across; Bow atoll is thirty miles long, and, on an average, six miles broad. This theory, moreover, is totally inapplicable to the Northern Maldivian atolls in the Indian Ocean, one of which is eighty-eight miles in length, and between ten and twenty in breadth.
The various theories which had been propounded as to the existence of the coral [pg 75]islands being unsatisfactory, Mr. Darwin was led to re-consider the whole subject. Numerous soundings taken all round the Cocos atoll showed that at ten fathoms the prepared tallow in the hollow of the sounding rod came up perfectly clean, and marked with the impression of living polyps. As the depth increased these impressions became less numerous, but adhering particles of sand succeeded, until it was evident that the bottom consisted of smooth mud. From these observations it was obvious to him that the utmost depth at which the coral polyps can construct reefs is between twenty and thirty fathoms. Now, there are enormous areas in the Indian Ocean in which every island is a coral formation, raised to the height to which the waves can throw up fragments and the winds pile up sand; and the only theory which seems to account for all the circumstances embraced is that of the subsidence of vast regions in this ocean. “As mountain after mountain and island after island slowly sank beneath the water,” he says, “fresh bases could be successively afforded for the growth of the corals. I venture to defy any one to explain in any other manner how it is possible that numerous islands should be distributed throughout vast areas, all the islands being low, all built of coral, absolutely requiring a foundation within a limited depth below the surface.”
Darwin’s description of the island of Cocos, or Keeling, is as follows:—“The ring-formed reef of the lagoon island is surmounted in the greater part of its length by linear islets. On the northern or leeward side there is an opening through which vessels can pass to the anchorage within. On entering, the scene was very curious and rather pretty; its beauty, however, entirely depended on the brilliancy of the surrounding colours. The shallow, clear, and still water of the lagoon, resting in its greater part on white sand, is, when illuminated by a vertical sun, of the most vivid green. This brilliant expanse, several miles in width, is on all sides divided, either by a line of snow-white breakers from the dark heaving waters of the ocean, or from the blue vault of heaven by the strips of land crowned by the level tops of the cocoa-nut tree. As a white cloud here and there affords a pleasing contrast to the azure sky, so in the lagoon bands of living coral darken the emerald-green water.
“The next morning I went ashore on Direction Island. The strip of dry land is only a few hundred yards in width; on the lagoon side there was a white calcareous beach, the radiation from which, under this sultry climate, was very oppressive. On the outer coast, a solid, broad, flat coral rock served to break the violence of the open sea. Excepting near the lagoon, where there is some sand, the land is entirely composed of rounded fragments of coral. In such a loose, dry, stony soil, the climate of the intertropical regions alone could produce so vigorous a vegetation.