Coral Reefs

Abstract

THE business of the surveyor abroad is not with theories. It is to collect facts; to apply the resources under his command to the delineation of the earth's surface; and to examine the bottom of the ocean. When he begins to theorize, he may be suspected with some reason of bias, and of insensibly colouring his reports with preconceived notions of what he expected to find, instead of carefully storing up evidence. He is, however, at liberty to study the writings of our great naturalists, and to him Darwin is, at present, the great authority: not so much the young naturalist of the Beagle, as the matured thinker who, after forty years of deep research into various problems of Nature, published that edition of “Coral Reefs” which has been before the world for the last fifteen years.