The things we do!

These are coral islands,
slowly raised, but continuous, created by the daily work of polypi.
Then this new island will be joined later on to the neighboring groups,
and a fifth continent will stretch from New Zealand and New Caledonia,
and from thence to the Marquesas.
One day, when I was suggesting this theory to Captain Nemo,
he replied coldly:
"The earth does not want new continents, but new men."
Chance had conducted the Nautilus towards the Island of
Clermont-Tonnere, one of the most curious of the group, that was
discovered in 1822 by Captain Bell of the Minerva. I could study now
the madreporal system, to which are due the islands in this ocean.
Madrepores (which must not be mistaken for corals) have a tissue
lined with a calcareous crust, and the modifications of its
structure have induced M. Milne Edwards, my worthy master, to class
them into five sections. The animalcule that the marine polypus
secretes live by millions at the bottom of their cells. Their
calcareous deposits become rocks, reefs, and large and small
islands.


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