4. Coral reefs are formed by tiny animals called “coral polypes” which, almost as soon as they are born, begin to separate part of their food to build up their houses. They often stick to one another and build in companies. We will imagine 10 of these little animals have started building at the bottom of the sea. Two or three of them may have stuck to each other, and soon a little pillar appears of red, white or (very rarely) black coral. New little polypes are born, and they build on and round their parents’ work. So it get (_sic_) broader and higher, and more and more little ones come to enlarge the work, till one day a point of red or white coral appears above the surface of the sea. More and more of it appears, till there is quite a little island. Then the wind often blows seeds, and the birds bring them, and the sea washes up sand into the nooks and crannies, till palm-trees grow, and other plants, and birds build their nests there, and maybe have tiny birds themselves, and so there is an island fit for man’s use, and it all started from two or three little coral polypes about ⅛ of an inch long. Volcanoes are apparently openings in the earth’s crust down to (_sic_) very centre of the earth, where many people believe that there is a great fire, the remains of the days when the earth was a seething mass of fiery vapour. When eruptions break forth, flames and smoke reaching to an enormous height come out of the crater, and fiery lava runs in streams down the sides of the mountain, burning everything in its course, and stones and ashes are thrown out ever so far. In the sad eruption of Mont Pélée in 1901 ashes fell on steamers more than 100 miles away, and the noise of the eruption was heard for miles, and the city of St Pierre (the capital of Martinique) was entirely buried in ashes and lava; only a few church walls or street corners are remaining now to show that St Pierre was once a flourishing city. This shews that volcanoes are evidently openings through which the inside of the earth seems sometimes to “let off steam.” [_Diagrams._] _English Grammar._ Subject. |Attrib. of Subj.|Predicate.|Dir. Obj.|Adverbial Adjuncts. | | | | 1. Flowers | The, lily and | close | |one by one | dewy rose | | their | Shutting | | | tender |from the moon | | | petals | Grasshoppers| The | are still| | | | | | Crows | The noisy | are still| |but not so soon