Mrs. Brassey writes enthusiastically of some coral fields in the South Pacific. “It is really impossible to describe the beauty of the scene before us. Submarine coral forests of every colour, studded with sea‐ flowers, anemones, and echinidæ, of a brilliancy only to be seen in dreamland; shoals of the brightest and swiftest fish darting and flashing in and out; shells, every one of which was fit to hold the place of honour in a conchologist’s collection moving slowly along with their living inmates: this is what we saw when we looked down from the side of the boat into the depths below. The surface of the water glittered with every imaginable tint, from the palest aquamarine to the brightest emerald, from the pure light blue of the turquoise to the deepest dark blue of the sapphire, and was dotted here and there with patches of red, brown, and green coral, rising from the mass below. Before us, on the shore, there spread the rich growth of tropical vegetation, shaded by palms and cocoa‐ nuts, and enlivened by the presence of native women in red, blue, and green garments, and men in motley costumes, bringing fish, fowls, and bunches of cocoa‐nuts, borne, like the grapes brought back from the land of Canaan by the spies, on poles. “At 5 p.m. we went for a row in the _Glance_ and the _Flash_ to the coral reef, now illumined by the rays of the setting sun. Who can describe these wonderful gardens of the deep, on which we now gazed through ten and twenty fathoms of crystal water! Who can enumerate or describe the strange creatures moving about and darting hither and thither amid the masses of coral forming their submarine home! There were shells of rare shape, brighter than if they had been polished by the hand of the most skilful artist; crabs of all sizes scuttling and sliding along; sea‐anemones spreading their delicate feelers in search of prey, and many other kinds of zoophytes crawling slowly over the reef, and scarlet, blue, yellow, gold, violet, spotted, striped, and winged fish, short, long, pointed, and blunt, of the most varied shapes, were darting about like birds among the coral trees.”