CC. _Small Branches almost cover’d by a further addition of tubes, that have risen all round and increas’d the bulk of the Stem, continuing themselves along it to extend the ramifications; by this means they involve the former side branches into their own stem, differing intirely from the laws of vegetation._ D. _A piece of yᵉ. knobby joints magnified to shew their reticular texture like that of spongy orange wtʰ tubes._ _d._ _The same in its natural size._ E. _A piece of yᵉ. blood red tubes which is harden’d into a shelly or stony substance with some appearance of reticulations, taken from yᵉ. space between yᵉ. knobs._ _e._ _The same in its natural size._ F.F. _Small holes in yᵉ. branches of yᵉ. polypes._ G. _A mass of the stem not so highly magnified shewing yᵉ. tubes passing from stony to spongy._ _g._ _The same in its natural Size._ H. _The transverse section of the base shewing the holes in the ends of the tubes._ I. _One of the radiated cells magnified, this is guarded by 8 pointed valves, which close inward, when_ K. _the Polype draws in his head_ (_which is figur’d at_ K) _and opens outward when it extends it._] I now lay before you a piece of red coral (_See_ TAB. III. _Fig._ A.) from the East Indies of a very singular kind, which I received from your friend Abraham Hume, Esq. The stem and branches of this appear evidently to the naked eye to consist of a combination of vermicular tubes closely connected together: and, if we trace these little tubes to their starry openings on the surface, _Fig._ B. we shall plainly discover them to be the red testaceous coverings of certain marine polypes, which have raised themselves thus upright, and disposed themselves into this remarkable vegetable form. In order to form some idea, how these masses are increased and extended to the sizes we often meet with them, and where the same regularity of shape is preferred in the large, that we find in the small; we think it more than probable to suppose, that the species of polypes, that compose this coral, breed as we find all other polypes do: and this appears more evident to me, from what I have already discovered in many kinds of corallines (_See Plate 38. of my Essay on Corallines_), where the young polypes in some species are produced in the egg state, while others fall in great numbers from their matrices, completely formed, down to the roots of their parent corallines, either to begin a new race of the same species near them, or to increase the trunk, and extend the ramifications, of the plant-like figure which they just descended from.