 Coral and Coral Reefs by Thomas H. Huxley This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org, recording by Abaii in July 2019. Coral and Coral Reefs by Thomas H. Huxley A lecture delivered in Manchester, November 4th, 1870 The subject upon which I wish to address you tonight is the structure and origin of coral and coral reefs. Under the head of Coral, there are included two very different things. One of them is that substance, which I imagine a great number of us have champed when we were very much younger than we are now. The common red coral, which is used so much, as you know, for the edification and the delectation of children of tender years, and is also employed for the purposes of ornament for those who are much older and as some think might know better. The other kind of coral is a very different substance. It may for distinction's sake be called the white coral. It is a material which most assuredly not the hardest hearted of baby farmers would give to a baby to chew, and it is a substance which is to be seen only in the cabinets of curious persons, or in museums, or maybe over the mantle pieces of seafaring men. But although the red coral, as I have mentioned to you, has access to the very best society, and although the white coral is comparatively a despised product, yet in this, as in many other cases, the humbler thing is in reality the greater, the amount of work which is done in the world by the white coral being absolutely infinite compared with that affected by its delicate and pampered namesake. Each of these substances, the white coral and the red, however, has a relationship to the other. They are, in a zoological sense, cousins, each of them being formed by the same kind of animals in what is substantially the same way. Each of these bodies is, in fact, the hard skeleton of a very curious and a very simple animal, more comparable to the bones of such animals as ourselves than to the shells of oysters or creatures of that kind, for it is the hardening of the internal tissue of the creature, of its internal substance, but a deposit in the body of a material which is exceedingly common, not only in fresh but in sea water, and which is especially abundant in those waters which we know as hard, those waters, for example, which leave a fur upon the bottom of a tea kettle. This fur is carbonate of lime, the same sort of substance as limestone and chalk. That material is contained in solution in sea water, and it is out of the sea water in which these coral creatures live, that they get the lime which is needed for the forming of their hard skeleton. But now, what manner of creatures are these which form these hard skeletons? I dare say that in these days of keeping aquaria, of locomotion to the seaside, most of those whom I am addressing may have seen one of those creatures which used to be known as the sea anemone, receiving that name on account of its general resemblance, in a rough sort of way, to the flower which is known as the anemone. But being a thing which lives in the sea, it was qualified as the sea anemone. Well then, you must suppose a body shaped like a short cylinder, the top cut off, and in the top a hole rather oval than round. All round this aperture, which is the mouth, imagine that there are placed a number of feelers forming a circle. The cavity of the mouth leads into a sort of stomach, which is very unlike those of the higher animals, in the circumstance that it opens at the lower end into a cavity of the body, and all the digested matter, converted into nourishment, is thus distributed through the rest of the body. That is the general structure of one of these sea anemones. If you touch it, it contracts immediately into a heap. It looks at first quite like a flower in the sea, but if you touch it, you find that it exhibits all the peculiarities of a living animal, and if anything which can serve as its prey comes near its tentacles, it closes them round it and sucks the material into its stomach, and there digests it and turns it to the account of its own body. These creatures are very voracious, and not at all particular what they see, and sometimes it may be that they lay hold of a shellfish, which is far too big to be packed into that interior cavity, and of course in any ordinary animal a proceeding of this kind would give rise to a very severe fit of indigestion. But this is by no means the case in the sea anemone, because when digestive difficulties of this kind arise, he gets out of them by splitting himself in two, and then each half builds itself up into a fresh creature, and you have two polyps where there was previously one, and the bone which stuck in the way lying between them. Not only can these creatures multiply in this fashion, but they can multiply by buds. A bud will grow out of the side of the body, I am not speaking of the common sea anemone bud of allied creatures, just like the bud of a plant, and that will fashion itself into a creature just like the parent. There are some of them in which these buds remain connected together, and you will soon see what would be the result of that. If I make a bud grow out here, and another on the opposite side, and each fashions itself into a new polyp, the practical effect will be that before long you will see a single polyp converted into a sort of tree or bush of polyps. And these will all remain associated together, like a kind of cooperative store, which is a thing I believe you understand very well here. Each mouth will help to feed the body, and each part of the body help to support the multifarious mouths. I think that is as good an example of a zoological cooperative store as you can well have. Such are these wonderful creatures. But they are capable not only of multiplying in this way, but in other ways, by having a more ordinary and regular kind of offspring. Little eggs are hatched, and the young are passed out by the way of the mouth, and they go swimming about as little oval bodies covered with a very curious kind of hair-like processes. Each of these processes is capable of striking water like an oar, and the consequence is that the young creature is propelled through the water, so that you have the young polyp floating about in this fashion covered by its vibratile cilia, as these long filaments which are capable of vibration are termed. And thus, although the polyp itself may be a fixed creature unable to move about, it is able to spread its offspring over great areas. For these creatures not only propel themselves, but while swimming about in the sea for many hours, or perhaps days, it will be obvious that they must be carried hither and thither by the currents of the sea, which not unfrequently move at the rate of one or two miles an hour. Thus, in the course of a few days, the offspring of this stationary creature may be carried to a very great distance from its parent, and having been so carried it loses these organs by which it is propelled and settles down upon the bottom of the sea and grows up again into the form and condition of its parents. So that, if you suppose a single polyp of this kind settled upon the bottom of the sea, it may by these various methods, that is to say by cutting itself into, which we call fission, or by budding, or by sending out these swimming embryos, multiply itself to an enormous extent and give rise to thousands or millions of progeny in a comparatively short time, and these thousands or millions of progeny may cover a very large surface of the sea bottom. In fact, you will readily perceive that give them time and there is no limit to the surface which they may cover. Having understood thus far the general nature of these polyps, which are the fabricators both of the red and white coral, let us consider a little more particularly how the skeletons of the red coral and of the white coral are formed. The red coral polyp perches upon the sea bottom. It then grows up into a sort of stem and out of that stem there grow branches, each of which has its own polyps, and thus you have a kind of tree formed, every branch of the tree terminated by its polyp. It is a tree, but at the end of the branches there are open mouths of polyps instead of flowers. Thus there is a common soft body connecting the hole and as it grows up the soft body deposits in its interior a quantity of carbonate of lime which acquires a beautiful red or flesh color and forms a kind of stem running through the hole and it is that stem which is the red coral. The red coral grows principally at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea at very great depths and the coral fishers who are very adventurous semen take their dragnets of a peculiar kind roughly made but efficient for their purpose and drag them along the bottom of the sea to catch the branches of the red coral which become entangled and are thus brought up to the surface. They are then allowed to putrify in order to get rid of the animal matter and the red coral is the skeleton that is left. In the case of the white coral the skeleton is more complete. In the red coral the skeleton belongs to the whole. In the white coral there is a special skeleton for every one of these polyps in addition to that for the whole body. There is a skeleton formed in the body of each of them like a cup divided by a number of radiating partitions towards the outside and that cup is formed of carbonate of lime only not stained red as in the case of the red coral and all these cups are joined together into a common branch the result of which is the formation of a beautiful coral tree. This is a great mass of mudra pore and in the living state every one of the ends of these branches was terminated by a beautiful little polyp like a sea anemone and all the skeleton was covered by a soft body which united the polyps together. You must understand that all this skeleton has been formed in the interior of the body to suit the branched body of the polyp mass and that it is as much its skeleton as our own bones are our skeleton. In this next coral the creature which has formed the skeleton has divided itself as it grew and consequently has formed a great expansion but scattered all over the surface there were polyp bodies like those I previously described. Again when this great cup was alive the whole surface was covered with a beautiful body upon which were set innumerable small polyp flowers if we may so call them often brilliantly coloured and the whole cup was built up in the same fashion by the deposit of carbonate of lime in the interior of the combined polyp body formed by budding and by fission in the way I described. You will perceive that there is no necessary limit to this process. There is no reason why we should not have coral three or four times as big and there are certain creatures of this kind that do fabricate very large masses or half spheres several feet in diameter. Thus the activity of these animals separating carbonate of lime from the sea and building it up into definite shapes is very considerable indeed. Now I think I have said sufficient as much as I can without taking you into technical details of the general nature of these creatures which form coral. The animals which form coral are scattered over the seas of all countries in the world. The red coral is comparatively limited but the polyps which form the white coral are widely scattered. There are some of them which remain single or which give rise to only small accumulations and the skeletons of these, as they die, accumulate upon the bottom of the sea but they do not come too much. They are washed about and do not adhere together but become mixed up with the mud of the sea. But there are certain parts of the world in which the coral polyps which live and grow are of a kind which remain, adhere together and form great masses. They differ from the ordinary polyps just in the same way as those plants which form a peat bog or a meadow turf differ from ordinary plants. They have a habit of growing together in masses at the same place. They are what we call gregarious things and the consequence of this is that as they die and leave their skeletons those skeletons form a considerable solid aggregation at the bottom of the sea and other polyps perch upon them and begin building upon them and so by degrees a great mass is formed. And just as we know there are some ancient cities in which you have a British city and over that the foundations of a Roman city and over that a Saxon city and over that again a modern city so in these localities of which I am speaking you have the accumulations of the foundations of the houses if I may use the term of nation after nation of these coral polyps and these accumulations may cover a very considerable space and may rise in the course of time from the bottom to the surface of the sea. The miners have a name which they apply to all sorts of obstacles consisting of hard and rocky matter which comes in their way in the course of their navigation. They call such obstacles reefs and they have long been in the habit of calling the particular kind of reef which is formed by the accumulation of the skeletons of dead corals by the name of coral reefs. Therefore those parts of the world in which these accumulations occur have been termed by them coral reef areas or regions in which coral reefs are found. There is a very notable example of a simple coral reef about the island of Mauritius which I dare say you all know lies in the middle of the Indian Ocean. It is a very considerable and beautiful island and is surrounded on all sides by a mass of coral which has been formed in the way I have described so that if you could get upon the top of one of the peaks of the island and look down upon the Indian Ocean you would see that the beach around the island was continued outward by a kind of shallow terrace which is covered by the sea and where the sea is quite shallow. And at a distance varying from three quarters of a mile to a mile and a half from the proper beach there is a foam or surf which looks most beautiful in contrast with the bright green water in the inside and the deep blue of the sea beyond. That line of surf indicates the point at which the waters of the ocean are breaking upon the coral reef which surrounds the island. You see it sweep round the island upon all sides except where a river may chance to come down and make a gap in the shore. There are two or three points which I wish to bring clearly before your notice about such a reef as this. In the first place you perceive it forms a kind of fringe round the island and is therefore called a fringing reef. In the next place if you go out in a boat and take surroundings at the edge of the reef you find that the depth of the water is ranging from 20 to 25 fathoms that is about 120 to 150 feet. Outside that point you come to the natural sea bottom but all inside that depth is coral built up from the bottom by the accumulation of the skeletons of innumerable generations of coral polyps. So that you see the coral forms a very considerable rampard round the island. What the exact circumference may be I do not remember but it cannot be less than 100 miles and the outward height of this wall of coral rock nowhere amounts to less than about 100 or 150 feet. When the outward face of the reef is examined you find that the upper edge which is exposed to the wash of the sea and all the seaward face is covered with those living plant-like flowers which I have described to you. They are the coral polyps which grow, flourish and add to the mass of calcareous matter which already forms the reef. But towards the lower part of the reef at a depth of about 120 feet these creatures are less active and fewer of them at work and at greater depths than that you find no living coral polyp at all and it may be laid down as a rule derived from very extensive observation that these reef-building corals cannot live in a greater depth of water than about 120 to 150 feet. I beg you to recollect that fact because it is one I shall have to come back to by and by and to show to what very curious consequences that rule leads. Well then coming back to the margin of the reef you find that part of it which lies just within the surf to be coated by a very curious plant a sort of seaweed which contains in its substance a very great deal of carbonate of lime and looks almost like rock. This is what is called the Nali poor. More towards the land we come to the shallow water upon the inside of the reef which has a particular name derived from the Spanish or the Portuguese. It is called a lagoon or lake. In this lagoon there is comparatively little living coral. The bottom of it is formed of coral mud. If we pounded this coral in water it would be converted into calcareous mud and the waves during storms do for the coral skeletons exactly what we might do for this coral in a mortar. The waves tear off great fragments and crush them with prodigious force until they are ground into the merest powder and that powder is washed into the interior of the lagoon and forms a muddy coating at the bottom. Beside that there are great many animals that prey upon the coral fishes, worms and creatures of that kind and all these by their digestive processes reduce the coral to the same state and contribute a very important element to this fine mud. The living coral found in the lagoon is not the reef building coral. It does not give rise to the same massive skeletons. As you go in a boat over these shallow pools you see these beautiful things colored red, blue, green and all colors building their houses. But these are mere tenements and not to be compared in magnitude and importance to the masses which are built by the reef builders themselves. Now such a structure as this is what is termed a fringing reef. You meet with fringing reefs of this kind not only in the Mauritius but in a number of other parts of the world. If these were the only reefs to be seen anywhere the problem of the formation of coral reefs would never have been a difficult one. Nothing can be easier than to understand how there must have been a time when the coral polyps came and settled on the shores of this island everywhere within the 20 to 25 fathom line and how having perched there they gradually grew until they built up the reef. But these are by no means the only sort of coral reefs in the world. On the contrary there are very large areas not only of the Indian Ocean but of the Pacific in which many many thousands of square miles are covered either with a peculiar kind of reef which is called the encircling reef or by a still more curious reef which goes by the name of the atoll. There is a very good picture which Professor Roscoe has been kind enough to prepare for me of one of those atolls which will enable you to form a notion of it as a landscape. You have in the foreground the waters of the Pacific. You must fancy yourself in the middle of the Great Ocean and you will perceive that there is an almost circular island with a low beach which is formed entirely of coral sand. Growing upon that beach you have vegetation which takes of course the shape of the circular land and then in the interior of the circle there is a pool of water which is not very deep probably in this case not more than 8 or 9 fathoms and which forms a strange and beautiful contrast to the deep blue water outside. This circular island or atoll with a lagoon in the middle is not a complete circle. Upon one side of it there is a break exactly like the entrance into a dock and as a matter of course these circular islets or atolls for most efficient breakwaters for if you can only get inside your ship is in perfect safety with admirable anchorage in the interior. If the ship were lying within a mile of that beach the water would be one or two thousand feet deep therefore a section of that atoll with the soundings as deep as this all round would give you the notion of a great cone cut off at the top with a yellow cup in the middle of it. Now what a very singular fact this is that we should have rising from the bottom of the deep ocean a great pyramid beside which all human pyramids sink into the most utter insignificance. These singular coral limestone structures are very beautiful especially when crowned with coconut trees. There you see the long line of land with vegetation, coconut trees and you have to see upon the inner and outer sides with a vessel very comfortably riding at anchor. That is one of the remarkable forms of reef in the Pacific. Another is a sort of halfway house between the atoll and the fringing reef it is what is called an encircling reef. In this case you see an island rising out of the sea and at two or three miles or more and separated by a deep channel which may be eight to twelve fathoms deep there is a reef which encircles it like a great girdle and outside that again the water is one or two thousand feet deep. I spent three or four years of my life in cruising about a modification of one of these encircling reefs called a barrier reef upon the east coast of Australia one of the most wonderful accumulations of coral rock in the world. It is about 1,100 miles long and varies in width from one or two to many miles. It is separated from the coast of Australia by a channel of about 25 fathoms deep while outside looking toward America the water is two or three thousand feet deep at a mile from the edge of the reef. This is an accumulation of limestone rock built up by corals to which we have no parallel anywhere else. Imagine to yourself a heap of this material more than one thousand miles long and several miles wide. That is a barrier reef but a barrier reef is merely as it were a fragment of an encircling reef running parallel to the coast of a great continent. I told you that the polyps which built these reefs are not able to live at a greater depth than 20 to 25 fathoms of water and that is the reason why the fringing reef goes no farther from the land than it does. And for the same reason if the Pacific could be laid bare we should have a most singular spectacle. There would be a number of mountains with truncated tops scattered over it and those mountains would have an appearance just the very reverse of that presented by the mountains we see on shore. You know that the mountains on shore are covered with vegetation at their bases while their tops are barren or covered with snow but these mountains would be perfectly bare at their bases and all round their tops they would be covered with a beautiful vegetation of coral polyps. And not only would this be the case but we should find that for a considerable distance down the mountain material of these atoll and encircling reefs was built up of precisely the same coral rock as the fringing reef. That is to say you have an enormous mass of coral rock at a depth below the surface of the water where we know perfectly well that the coral animals could not have lived to form it. When those two facts were first put together naturalists were quite as much puzzled to say you are at present to understand how these two seeming contradictions could be reconciled and all sorts of odd hypothesis were resorted to. It was supposed that the coral did not extend so far down but that there was a great chain of submarine mountains stretching through the Pacific and that the coral had grown upon them. But only fancy what supposition that was for you would have to imagine that there was a chain of mountains a thousand miles or more long and that the top of every mountain came within twenty fathoms of the surface of the sea and neither rose above nor sunk beneath that level. That is highly improbable such a chain of mountains was never known. Then how can you possibly account for the curious circular form of the atolls by any supposition of this kind? I believe there was someone who imagined that all these mountains were volcanoes and that the reefs had grown round the tops of the craters so we all stuck fast. I may say we, though it was rather before my time and when we all stick fast it is just the use of a man of genius that he comes and shows us the meaning of the thing. He generally gives an explanation which is so ridiculously simple that everybody is ashamed that he did not find it out before and the way such a discoverer is often rewarded is by finding out that someone had made the discovery before him. I do not mean to say that it was so in this particular instance because the great man who played the part of Columbus and the egg on this occasion had, I believe always had the full credit which he so well deserves. The discoverer of the key to these problems was a man whose name you know very well in connection with other matters and I should not wonder if some of you have heard it said that he was a superficial kind of person who did not know much about the subject on which he writes. He was Mr. Darwin and this brilliant discovery of his was made public thirty years ago long before he became the celebrated man he now is and it was one of the most singular instances of that astonishing sagacity which he possesses of drawing consequences by way of deduction from simple principles of natural science a power which has served him in good state on other occasions. Well Mr. Darwin, looking at these curious difficulties and having that sort of knowledge of natural phenomena in general without which he could not have made a step towards the solution of the problem he said to himself it is perfectly clear that the coral which forms the base of the atolls and fringing reefs could not possibly have been formed there if the level of the sea has always been exactly where it is now for we know for certain that these polyps cannot build at a greater depth than twenty to twenty-five fathoms and here we find them at fifty to one hundred fathoms. That was the first point to make clear the second point to deal with was if the polyps cannot have built there while the level of the sea has remained stationary then one of two things must have happened either the sea has gone up or the land has gone down there is no escape from one of these two alternatives now the objections to the notion of the sea having gone up are very considerable indeed for you will readily perceive that the sea could not possibly have risen a thousand feet in the Pacific without rising pretty much the same distance everywhere else and if it had risen that high to everywhere else since the reefs began to be formed the geography of the world in general must have been very different indeed at that time from what it is now and we have very good means of knowing that any such rise as this certainly has not taken place in the level of the sea since the time that the corals have been building their houses and so the only other alternative was to suppose that the land had gone down and at so slow a rate that the corals were able to grow upward as fast as it went downward you will see at once that this is the solution of the mystery and nothing can be simpler or more obvious when you come to think about it suppose we start with the coral sea and put in the middle of it an island such as the Mauritius now let the coral polyps come and perch on the shore and build a fringing reef which will stop when they come to 20 or 25 fathoms and you will have a fringing reef like that round the island in the illustration so long as the land remains stationary so long as it does not descend so long will that reef be unable to get any further out because the moment the polyp embryos try to get below they die but now suppose that the land sinks very gradually indeed let it subside by slow degrees until the mountain peak which we have in the middle of it alone projects beyond the sea level the fringing reef would be carried down also but we suppose that the sinking is so slow that the coral polyps are able to grow up as fast as the land is carried down consequently they will add layer upon layer until they form a deep cup because the inner part of the reef grows much more slowly than the outer part thus you have the reef forming a bit thicker upon the flanks of the island but the edge of the reef will be very much further out from the land the lagoon will be many times deeper in short your fringing reef will be converted into an encircling reef and if instead of this being an island it were a great continent like Australia then you will have the phenomenon of a barrier reef which I have described the barrier reef of Australia was originally a fringing reef the land has gone slowly down as it is the lagoon has deepened until it's depth is now 25 fathoms and the corals have grown up at the outer edge until you have that prodigious accumulation which forms the barrier reef at present now let this process go on further still let us take the land a further step down so as to submerge even the peak the coral still growing up will cover the surface of the land and you will have an atoll reef that is to say a more or less circular or oval ring of coral rock with a lagoon in the middle thus you see that every peculiarity and phenomenon of these different forms of coral reef was explained at once by the simplest of all possible suppositions namely by supposing that the land has gone down at a rate not greater than that which the coral polyps have grown up you explain a fringing reef as a reef which is formed round land comparatively stationary an encircling reef is one which is found round land going down and an atoll as a reef formed upon land gone down and the thing is so simple that a child may understand it when it is once explained but this would by no means satisfy the conditions of a scientific hypothesis no man who is cautious would dream of trusting to an explanation of this kind simply because it explained one particular set of facts before you can possibly be safe in dealing with nature who is very properly made of the feminine gender on account of the astonishing tricks which she plays upon her admirers I say before you can be safe in dealing with nature you must get two or three kinds of cross-proofs so as to make sure not only that your hypothesis fits that particular set of facts but that it is not contradicted by some other set of facts which is just as clear and certain and it so happens that in this case Mr. Darwin supplied the cross-proofs as well as the immediate evidence you have all heard of volcanoes those wonderful vents in the surface of the earth out of which poor masses of lava, cinders and ashes and the like now it is a matter of observation and experience that all volcanoes are placed in areas in which the surface of the earth is undergoing elevation or at any rate is stationary they are not placed in parts of the world in which the level of the land is being lowered they are all indications of a great subterranean activity of a something being pushed up and therefore naturally the land either gives way and lets it come through or else is raised up by its violence and so Mr. Darwin being desirous not to merely put out a flashy hypothesis but to get at the truth of the matter said to himself if my notion of this matter is right then atolls and encircling reefs in as much as they are dependent upon subsidence ought not to be found in company with volcanoes and vice versa volcanoes ought not to be found in company with atolls but they ought to be found in company with fringing reefs and if you turn to Mr. Darwin's great work upon the coral reefs you will see a very beautiful chart of the world which he prepared with great pains and labour showing the distribution on the one hand of the reefs and on the other of the volcanoes you will find that in no case does the atoll accompany the volcano or the volcano burst up among the atolls it is most instructive to look at the great area of the Pacific on the map and see the great masses of atolls forming in one region of it a most enormous belt running from northwest to southeast while the volcanoes which are very numerous in that region go round the margin so that we can picture the Pacific to ourselves a section of a kind of very shallow basin shallow in proportion to its width with the atolls rising from the bottom of it and at the margins to volcanoes it is exactly as if you had taken a flat mass and lifted up the edges of it the subterranean force which lifted up the edges shows itself in volcanoes and as the edges have been raised the middle part of the mass has gone down in other words the facts of physical geography precisely and exactly correspond with the hypothesis which accounts for the infinite varieties of coral reefs one other point before I conclude about this matter these reefs as you have just perceived are in a most singular and unexpected manner indications of physical changes of elevations and depressions going on upon the surface of the globe I dare say it may have surprised you to hear me talk in this familiar sort of way of land going up and down but it is one of the universal lessons of geology that the land is going down and going up and has been going up and down in all sorts of places and to all sorts of distances through all recorded time geologists would be quite right in maintaining the seeming paradox that the stable thing in the world is the fluid sea and the shifting thing is the solid land this may sound a very hard saying at first but the more you look into geology the more you will see ground for believing that it is not a mere paradox in an unexpected manner again these reefs afford us not only an indication of change of place but they afford an indication of lapse of time the reef is a timekeeper of a very curious character and you can easily understand why the coral polyp like everything else takes a certain time to grow to its full size it does not do it in a minute just as a child takes a certain time to grow into a man so does the embryo polyp take time to grow into a perfect polyp and form its skeleton consequently every particle of coral limestone is an expression of time it must have taken a certain time to separate the lime from the seawater it is not possible to arrive at an accurate computation of the time it must have taken to form these coral islands because we lack the necessary data but we can form a rough calculation which leads to very curious and striking results the computations of the rate at which corals grow are so exceedingly variable that we must allow the widest possible margin for error and it is better in this case to make the allowance upon the side of excess I think that anybody who knows anything about the matter will tell you that I am making a computation far in excess of what is probable if I say that an inch of coral limestone may be added to one of these reefs in the course of a year I think most naturalists would be inclined to laugh at me for making such an assumption and would put the growth at certainly not more than half that amount but supposing it is so what a very curious notion of the antiquity of some of these great living pyramids comes out by a very simple calculation there is no doubt whatever that the sea faces of some of them are fully a thousand feet high and if you take the reckoning of an inch a year that will give you 12,000 years for the age of that particular pyramid or a cone of coral limestone 12,000 long years have these creatures been laboring in conditions which must have been substantially the same as they are now otherwise the polyps could not have continued their work but I believe I very much understate both the height of some of these masses and overstate the amount which these animals can form in the course of a year so that you might very safely double the period as the time during which the Pacific Ocean the general state of the climate and the sea and the temperature has been substantially what it is now and yet that state of things which now obtains in the Pacific Ocean is the yesterday of the history of the life of the globe those pyramids of coral rock are built upon a foundation which is itself formed by the deposits which the geologist has to deal with if we go back in time and search through the series of the rocks we find that every age of the world's history which has yet been examined accumulations of limestone many of which have certainly been built up in just the same way as those coral reefs which are now forming the bottom of the Pacific Ocean and even if we turn to the oldest periods of geologic history although the nature of the materials is changed although we cannot apply to them the same reasonings that we can to the existing corals yet still there are vast masses of limestone formed of nothing else than the accumulations of the skeletons of similar animals and testifying that even in those remote periods of the world's history as now the order of things implies that the earth had already endured for a period of which our ordinary standards of chronology give us not the slightest conception in other words the history of these coral reefs traced out honestly and carefully and with the same sort of reasoning that you would use in the ordinary affairs of life testifies like every fact that I know of to the prodigy's antiquity of the earth since it existed in a condition in the main similar to that in which it now is End of Coral and Coral Reefs by Thomas H. Huxley Fidelio by John F. Runciman This is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org As an enthusiastic lover of Fidelio I may perhaps be permitted to put one or two questions to certain other of its lovers Is it in opera at all? Does it not consist of one wonderful touching situation patted out before and behind before with some particularly fatuous reminiscences of the old comedy of intrigue behind with some purely formal business in a pompous final chorus Fidelio exists by reason of that one tremendous scene There is nothing else dramatic in it However fun the music is one cannot forget that the libretto is fustian and superfluous nonsense Had Beethoven possessed the slightest genius for opera Had he possessed anything like Mozart's dramatic instinct and of course his own determination to touch nothing but fitting subjects he would have felt that no meaner story than the flying Dutchman would serve as an opportunity to say all that was aroused in his heart and in his mind by the tale of Leonora As he had no genius whatever for opera no sense of the dramatic in life the tale of Leonora seemed to him good enough and after all in its essence it is the same as the tale of Senta The Dutchman himself happens to be more interesting than Floristan because of his weird fate He is no more the principal character in Wagner's opera than Floristan is the principal character in Beethoven's opera The principal character in each case is the woman who takes her fate into her own hands and fearlessly chances every risk for the sake of the man she loves and just as Wagner wrote the best passage in the Dutchman for the moment when Senta promises to be faithful through life and death and in the present scene of Fidelio wrote as tremendous a passage as even he ever conceived for the moment when Leonora makes up her mind at all costs to save the life of the wretched prisoner whose grave she is helping to dig The tale is simple enough there is scarcely enough of it to call a tale Leonora's husband Floristan has somehow fallen into the power of his enemy Pizarro who imprisons him and then says he is dead Leonora disbelieves this and disguising herself as a boy and taking the name of Fidelio hires herself as an assistant to Rocco the jailer of the fortress in which Floristan is confined At that time the news arrives that an envoy of the king is coming to see that no injustice is being done by Pizarro Pizarro has been hoping to star Floristan slowly to death but now he sees the necessity of more rapid action he therefore tells Rocco to dig a grave in Floristan's cell and he himself will do the necessary murder this brings about the great prison scene Floristan lies asleep in a corner Leonora is not sure whether she is helping to dig his grave or the grave of some other unlucky wretch but while she works she takes her resolution whoever he may be she will risk all consequences and save him Pizarro arrives and is about to kill Floristan when Leonora presents a pistol to his head and before he has quite had time to recover a trumpet call is heard signaling the arrival of the envoy Pizarro knows the game is up and Floristan that his wife has saved him this I declare is the only dramatic scene in the play here the thing ends accepting it there is no real incident the business at the beginning about the jailer's daughter refusing to have anything more to do with her former sweetheart and falling in love with a supposed fidelio is merely silly Rocco's song elegantly translated in one edition life is nothing without money heaven knows whether it was intended to be humorous is stupid Pizarro's stage villainous song of vengeance is unnecessary the arrangement of the crime is a worry these and in fact all that comes before the great scene are entirely superfluous the purest piffle very tiresome most exasperating of all is the stupid dialogue which makes one hope that the man who wrote it died a painful lingering death but in spite of it all Beethoven by writing some very beautiful music in the first act and by rising to an astonishing height in the prison scene and the succeeding duet has created one of the wonders of the music world being a glorification of woman German woman although Leonora is presumably Spanish fidelio has inevitably become in Germany the Hausfrau's opera probably there is not a Hausfrau who faithfully cooks her husband's dinner washes for him blacks his boots and would even brush his clothes did he ever think that necessary who does not see herself reflected in Leonora probably every German householder either longs to possess her or believes that he does possess her consequently just as Mozart's Don Giovanni became the playground of the Italian prima donna so his fidelio become the playground of that terrible apparition the wifely woman artist the singer with no voice nor beauty nor manners but with a high character for correct morality and a pressure of sentimentality that would move attraction engine I remember seeing it played a few years ago and can never forget Leonora of 16 stones steadily singing out a tune in the first act professing with profuse perspiration her devotion to her husband whose weight was rather less than half hers and in the second act nearly crushing the poor gentlemen by throwing herself on him to show him that she was forever his recent performance at Covent Garden arranged specially I understand for Ternina was not nearly so bad as that but still Ternina scared me horribly with the enormous force of her wifely art it may be that German women are more demonstrative than English women in public but for my poor part too much public affection between man and wife always strikes me as a little false besides the grand characteristic of Leonora is not that she loves her husband lots of women do that and managed to love other people's husbands also but that driven at first by affection and afterwards by purely human compassion she is capable of rising to the heroic point of doing in life what she feels she must do of course she may have been an abnormal combination of the wifely woman with the heroic woman but one cannot help thinking that probably she was not that however strong her affection for Florestan she would no sooner get him home than she would ask him how he came to be such a fool as to get into Pizarro's clutches anyhow Ternina's conception of Leonora as a mixture of the contemptible will-less German Hausfrau with the strong-willed woman of action was to me a mixture of contradictions yet despite all these things the opera made the deep impression it does and always will make that impression is due entirely to the music and not to the drama dramatic music in the sense that Mozart's music and Wagner's is dramatic it is not there is not the slightest attempt at characterization not even such small characterization as Mozart secured in his Lassidatum with Serlina's little fluttering agitated phrases nor in the lighter portions is there a trace of Mozart's divine intoxicating laughter of the sweet sad laugh with which he met the griefs life brought him there's none of Mozart's sunlight his delicious fresh early morning sunlight in Beethoven's music when he wrote such a number as the first duet intended to be gracefully semi-humorous he was merely heavy clumsy dull but when the worst has been said when one has arrived under the recollection of an adipose prima donna fooling with bear-like skittishness a German tenor whose figure and face beret the lager habit when one has shuttered to remember the long-winded idiotic dialogue the fact is firmly set in one's mind that one has stood before a gigantic work of art a work whose every defect is redeemed by its overwhelming power and beauty and pathos there has never been nor does it seem possible there ever will be a finer scene written than the dodging scene it begins with the low soft throbbing of the strings then there is the sinister thunderous role of the double basis then the old man quietly tells Leonora to hurry on with the digging at the grave and Leonora replies against that wondrous phrase of the oboes after that the old man continues to grumble the dull threatening thunder of the basis continues and Leonora half terrified tries to see whether the sleeping prisoner is her husband then abruptly her courage rises her short broken phrases are abandoned into a great sweeping melody she declares that whoever the prisoner may be she will set him free these twenty bars are as great music as anything in the world they even leave sent as declaration in the Dutchman far behind they are at once triumphant and charged with a pathos nearly unendurable in its intensity the scene ends with a strange hushed unison passage like some unearthly chant it is the low before the breaking of the storm the entry of Pizarro and the pistol business are by no means done as Wagner or Mozart would have done them the music is always excellent and sometimes great but persistently symphonic and not dramatic in character however it serves in the strength of the situation carries one on until the trumpet call is heard and then we get a wonderful tune such as neither Mozart nor Wagner could have written a tune that is sheer Beethoven the finale of the scene is neither here nor there but in the duet between Leonora and Floristan we have again pure Beethoven there is one passage it begins at bar 32 which is the expression of the very soul of the composer one feels that if it had not come his heart must have burst I've neither space nor inclination to rehearse all the splendors of the opera but may remind the reader of floristan song in the dungeon Leonora's address to hope and the hundred other fine things spread over it it is symphonic not dramatic music but it is at times unspeakably pathetic at times full of radiant strength and always an absolutely truthful utterance of sheer human emotion Wagner hit exactly the word when he spoke of the truthful Beethoven here is no pose no mere tone weaving but the precise and most poignant expression of the logical course taken by the human passions and a Fidelio by John F. Runciman excerpt from the first apology of Justin by Justin murder 100 to 100 and 65 AD this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org the first apology of Justin to the emperor Titus Ilius Adrianus Antoninus Pius Augustus Caesar and to his son there is him as the philosopher and Lucius the philosopher the natural son of Caesar and the adopted son of Pius a lover of learning and to the sacred Senate with the whole people of the Romans I Justin the son of Priscus and grandson of Bacchus natives of Flavia Neopolis in Palestine present this address and petition in behalf of those of all nations who are unjustly hated and wantonly abused myself being one of them reason directs those who are truly pious and philosophical to honor and love only what is true declining to follow traditional opinions if these be worthless for not only does sound reason direct us to refuse the guidance of those who did or taught anything wrong but it is incumbent on the lover of truth by all means and if death be threatened even before his own life to choose to do and say what is right do you then since you are called pious and philosophers guardians of justice and lovers of learning give good heed and harken to my address and if you are indeed such it will be manifest for we have come not to flatter you by this writing nor please you by our address but to beg that you pass judgment after an accurate and searching investigation not flattered by prejudice or by a desire of pleasing superstitious men nor induced by a rational impulse or evil rumors which have long been prevalent to give a decision which will prove to be against yourselves for as for us we reckon that no evil can be done us unless we be convicted as evil doers or be proved to be wicked men and you you can kill but not hurt us but last anyone think that this is an unreasonable and reckless utterance we demand that the charges against the Christians be investigated and that if these be substantiated they be punished as they deserve or rather indeed we ourselves will punish them but if no one can convict us of anything true reason forbids you for the sake of a wicked rumor to wrong blameless men and indeed rather yourselves who think fit to direct affairs not by judgment but by passion and every sober minded person will declare this to be the only fair and equitable adjustment namely that the subjects render an unexceptionable account of their own life and doctrine and that on the other hand the rulers should give their decision in obedience not to violence and tyranny but to piety and philosophy for thus would both rulers and ruled reap benefit for even one of the ancients somewhere said unless both rulers and ruled philosophize it is impossible to make states blessed it is our task therefore to afford to all an opportunity of inspecting our life and teachings last on account of those who are accustomed to be ignorant of our affairs we should incur the penalty due to them for mental blindness and it is your business when you hear us to be found as reason demands good judges for if when you have learned the truth you do not what is just you will be before God without excuse by the mere application of a name nothing is decided either good or evil apart from the actions implied in the name and indeed so far at least as one may judge from the name we are accused of we are most excellent people but as we do not think it just to beg to be acquitted on account of the name if we be convicted as evil doers so on the other hand if we be found to have committed no offense either in the matter of thus naming ourselves or of our conduct as citizens it is your part very earnestly to guard against incurring just punishment by unjustly punishing those who are not convicted for from a name neither praised or punishment would reasonably spring unless something excellent or base in action be proved and those among yourselves who are accused you do not punish before they are convicted but in our case you receive the name as proof against us and this although so far as the name goes you are rather to punish our accusers for we are accused of being Christians and to hate what is excellent Christian is unjust again if any of the accused deny the name and say that he is not a Christian you equate him as having no evidence against him as a wrong doer but if anyone acknowledged that he is a Christian you punish him on account of this acknowledgement justice requires that you inquire into the life both of him who confesses and of him who denies that by his deeds it may be apparent what kind of man each is for as some we have been taught by the master Christ not to deny him give encouragement to others when they are put to the question so in all probability to those who lead wicked lives give occasion to those who without consideration take upon them to accuse all the Christians of impiety and wickedness and this also is not right for of philosophy to some assume the name and the garb who do nothing worthy of their profession and you are well aware that those of the ancients whose opinions and teachings were quite diverse are yet all called by the one name of philosophers and of these some taught atheism and the poets who have flourished among you raise a laugh out of the uncleanness of Jupiter with his own children and those who now adopt such instruction are not restrained by you but on the contrary you bestow prizes and honors upon those who you finessly insult the gods why then should this be in our case who pledge ourselves to do no wickedness not to hold these atheistic opinions you do not examine the charges made against us but yielding to unreasonable passion and to the instigation of evil demons you punish us without consideration or judgment for the truth shall be spoken since of old these evil demons affecting apparitions of themselves both defiled women and corrupted boys and showed such fearful sites to men that those who did not use their reason in judging of the actions that were done were struck with terror and being carried away by fear and not knowing that these were demons they called them gods and gave to each the name which each of the demons chose for himself and when Socrates endeavored by true reason and examination to bring these things to light and deliver men from the demons then the demons themselves by means of men who rejoiced in iniquity come past his death as an atheist and a profane person on the charge that he was introducing new divinities and in our case they display a similar activity for not only among the Greeks did reason logos prevailed to condemn these things through Socrates but also among the barbarians they were condemned by reason or the word the logos himself who took shape and became man and was called Jesus Christ and in obedience to him we not only deny that they who did such things as these are gods but assert that they are wicked and impious demons whose actions will not bear comparison with those even of men desirous of virtue hence we are called atheists and we confess that we are atheists so far as gods of this sort are concerned but not with respect to the most true god the father of righteousness and temperance and the other virtues who is free from all impurity but both him and the son who came forth from him and taught us these things and the host of the other good angels who follow and are made like to him and the prophetic spirit we worship and adore knowing them in reason and truth and declaring without grudging to everyone who wishes to learn as we have been taught but someone will say some have ere now been arrested and convicted as evil doers for you condemn many many a time after inquiring into the life of each of the accused separately but not on account of those of whom we have been speaking and this we acknowledge that as among the Greeks those who teach such theories as please themselves are all called by the one name philosopher though their doctrines be diverse so also among the barbarians this name on which accusations are accumulated is the common property of those who are and those who seem wise for all are called Christians where for we demand that the deeds of all those who are accused to you be judged in order that each one who is convicted may be punished as an evil doer and not as a Christian and if it is clear that anyone is blameless that he may be acquitted since by the mere fact of his being a Christian he does no wrong for we will not require that you punish our accusers they being sufficiently punished by their present wickedness and ignorance of what is right and reckon ye that it is for your sakes we have been saying these things for it is in our power when we are examined to deny that we are Christians but we would not live by telling a lie for impaled by the desire of the eternal and pure life we seek the abode that is with God the father and creator of all and hasten to confess our faith persuaded and convinced as we are that they who have proved to God by their works that they followed him and loved to abide with him where there is no sin to cause disturbance can obtain these things this then to speak shortly is what we expect and have learned from Christ and teach and Plato in like manner used to say that Radamanthus and Minos would punish the wicked who came before him and we say that the same thing will be done but at the hand of Christ and upon the wicked in the same bodies united again in their spirits and now to undergo everlasting punishment and not only as Plato said for a period of a thousand years and if anyone say that this is incredible or impossible this air of ours is one which concerns ourselves only and no other person so long as you cannot convict us of doing any harm and neither do we honor with many sacrifices and garlands of flowers such as these as men have formed and set in shrines and called gods since we see that these are soulless and dead and have not the form of God for we do not consider that God has such a form as some say that they imitate to his honor but have the names and forms of these wicked demons which have appeared for why need we tell you who already know craftsmen carving and cutting casting and hammering fashion the materials and often out of vessels of dishonor by merely changing the form and making an image of the requisite shape they make what they call a God which we consider not only senseless but to be even insulting to God who having ineffable glory and form thus gets his name attached to things that are corruptible and why are constant service and that the artificer of these are both intemperate and not to enter into particulars are practiced in every vice you very well know even their own girls who work along with them they corrupt what infatuation that disillute men should be said to fashion and make gods for your worship and that you should appoint such men the guardians of the temples where they are trained not recognizing that it is unlawful even to think or say that men are the guardians of gods but we have received by tradition that God does not need the material offerings which men can give seeing indeed that he himself is the provider of all things and we have been taught and are convinced and do believe that he accepts those only who imitate the Excellences which reside in him temperance and justice and philanthropy and as many virtues as are peculiar to a God who is called by no proper name and we have been taught that he in the beginning did of his goodness for man's sake create all things out of an unformed matter and if men by their works show themselves worthy of this his design they are deemed worthy and so we have received of reigning in company with him being delivered from corruption and suffering for as in the beginning he created us when we were not so do we consider that in like manner those who choose what is pleasing to him are on account of their choice deemed worthy of in corruption and of fellowship with him for the coming into being at first was not in our own power and in order that we may follow those things which please him choosing them by means of the rational faculties he has himself endowed us with he both persuades us and leads us to faith and we think it for the advantage of all men that they are not restrained from learning these things but are even urged there too for the restraint which human laws could not affect the word in as much as he is divine would have affected had not the wicked demons taking as their ally the lust of wickedness which is in every man and which draws variously to all manner of vice scattered many false and profane accusations none of which attached to us and when you hear that we look for a kingdom you suppose without making any inquiry that we speak of a human kingdom whereas we speak of that which is with God as appears also from the confessions of their faith made by those who are charged with being Christians though they know that death is the punishment awarded to him who so confesses and if we look for a human kingdom we should also deny our Christ that we might not be slain and we should strive to escape detection that we might expect but since our thoughts are not fixed on the present we are not concerned when men cut us off since also death is a debt which must at all events be paid and more than all other men are we your helpers and allies in promoting peace seen that we hold this view that it is alike impossible for the wicked the covetous the conspirator and for the virtuous to escape the notice of God and that each man goes to everlasting punishment or salvation according to the value of his actions for if all men knew this no one would choose wickedness even for a little knowing that he goes to the everlasting punishment of fire but would by all means restrain himself and adorn himself with virtue that he might obtain the good gifts of for those who on account of the laws and punishments you impose endeavor to escape detection when they offend and they offend too under the impression that it is quite possible to escape your detection since you are but men those persons if they learned and were convinced that nothing whether actually done or only intended can escape the knowledge of God would by all means live account of the penalties threatened as even you yourselves will admit but you seem to fear lest all men become righteous and you no longer have any to punish such would be the concern of public executioners but not of good princes but as we before said we are persuaded that these things are prompted by evil spirits who demand sacrifices and service even from those who live unreasonably but as for you we presume that you who aim at a reputation for piety and philosophy will do nothing unreasonable but if you also like the foolish prefer custom to truth do what you have power to do but just so much power have rulers who esteem opinion more than truth as robbers have in a desert and not succeed is declared by the word then whom after God who begat him we know there is no ruler more kingly and just for as all shrink from succeeding to the poverty or sufferings or obscurity of their fathers so whatever the word forbids us to choose the sensible man will not choose that all these things should come to pass I say our teacher for told he who is both son and apostle of God the father of all and the ruler Jesus Christ from whom also we have the name of Christians we become more assured of all the things he taught us since whatever he beforehand for told should come to pass is seen in fact coming to pass and this is the work of God to tell of a thing before it happens and as it was foretold so to show it happening if it were possible to pause here and add no more reckoning that we demand what is just and true but because we are well aware that it is not easy suddenly to change a mind possessed by ignorance we intend to add a few things for the sake of persuading those who love the truth knowing that it is not to put ignorance to flight by presenting the truth what sober minded man then will not acknowledge that we are not atheists worshiping as we do the maker of this universe and declaring as we have been taught that he has no need of streams of blood and libations and incense whom we praise to the utmost of our power by the exercise of prayer and living for all things wherewith we are supplied as we have been taught that the only honor that is worthy of him is not to consume by fire what he has brought into being for our sustenance but to use it for ourselves and those who need and with gratitude to him to offer thanks by invocations and hymns for our creation and for all the means of health and for the various duties of the different kinds of things and for the changes of the seasons and to present before him petitions for our existing again in incorruption through faith in him our teacher of these things as Jesus Christ who also was born for this purpose and was crucified under Pontius Pilate procurator of Judea in the times of Tiberius Caesar that we reasonably worship him having learned that he is the son of the true God himself and holding him in the second place and the prophetic spirit in the third we will prove for they proclaim our madness to consist in this that we give to a crucified man a place second to the unchangeable and eternal God the creator of all for they do not discern the mystery that is herein to which as we make it plain to you we pray that you give heed for we forewarn you to be on your guard lest those demons whom we have been accusing should deceive you and quite divert you from reading and understanding what we say for they strive to hold you their slaves and servants and sometimes by appearances in dreams and sometimes by magical impositions they subdue all who make no strong opposing effort for their own salvation and thus do we also since our persuasion by the word stand aloof from them namely the demons and follow the only unbegotten God through his son we who formerly delighted in fornication but now embrace chastity alone we who formerly used magical arts dedicate ourselves to the good and unbegotten God we who valued above all things the acquisition of wealth and possessions now bring what we have into a common stock and communicate to everyone in need we who hated and destroyed one another and an account of their different manners would not live with of a different tribe now since the coming of Christ live familiarly with them and pray for our enemies and endeavor to persuade those who hate us unjustly to live conformably to the good precepts of Christ to the end that they may become partakers with us of the same joyful hope of a reward from God the ruler of all but best we should seem to be reasoning sophisticly we consider it right before giving you the promised explanation to cite a few precepts given by Christ himself and be it yours as powerful rulers to inquire whether we have been taught and do teach these things truly brief and concise utterances fell from him for he was no softest but his word was the power of God concerning chastity he uttered such sentiments as these whoever looketh upon a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart before God and if you write I offend thee cut it out for it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of heaven with one eye than having two eyes to be cast into everlasting fire whosoever shall marry her that is divorced from another husband committed adultery and there are some who have been made eunuchs of men and some who were born eunuchs and some who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake but all cannot receive this saying so that all who by human law are twice married are in the eye of our master sinners and those who look upon a woman to lust after her for not only he who in act commits adultery is rejected by him but also he who desires to commit adultery since not only our works but also our thoughts are open before God and many both men and women who have been Christ disciples from childhood remain pure at the age of 60 or 70 years and I boast that I could produce such from every race of men for what shall I say to of the countless multitude of those who have reformed in temperate habits and learned these things for Christ called not the just nor the chaste to repentance but the ungodly and the licentious and the unjust his words being I came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance for the heavenly father desires rather the repentance then the punishment of the sinner and of our love to all he taught thus if ye love them that love you what new thing do ye for even fornicators do this but I say unto you pray for your enemies and love them that hate you and bless them that curse you and pray for them and that you should communicate to the needy and do nothing for glory he said give to him that asketh and from him that would borrow turn not away for if he lend to them of whom he hoped to receive what new thing do ye even the publicans do this lay not up for yourselves treasure upon earth where moth and rust doth corrupt and where robbers break through but lay up for yourselves treasure in heaven where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt for what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul or what shall a man give an exchange for it lay up treasure therefore in heaven where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt and be ye kind and merciful as your father also is kind and merciful and maketh his son to rise on sinners and on the righteous and the wicked take no thought what ye shall eat or what ye shall put on are ye not better than the birds and the beasts and God fetus them take no thought therefore what ye shall eat or what ye shall put on for your heavenly father knoweth that ye have need of these all these things shall be added unto you for where his treasure is there also is the mind of the man and do not these things to be seen of men otherwise ye have no reward from your father which is in heaven end of excerpt from the first apology of Justin by Justin murder 100 to 165 AD the function of a national library 1897 by Ainsworth Rand Spofford 6th Librarian of Congress this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org the uses of a great national collection of books are so manifold and far-reaching that it is difficult to sum them up in any succinct statement the library at Washington steadily growing for generations was founded primarily for the use and reference of Congress as the library of our national legislature whose responsible labors cover the wide field of domestic welfare and foreign relations it should contain all that can contribute to their service and information this being his primary function and a great and comprehensive library having been thus gathered a far wider field of usefulness is found in opening its treasures freely to the public gathered as it has been by appropriations of public money supplemented for more than a quarter of a century by the steady acquisitions coming in under copyright law it has become to a degree the representative of American science and the conservatory of the nation's literature as the only government library of comprehensive range every year of its existence should be marked by incessant progress toward completeness in every department in the new and splendid home for the nation's books provided by the farsighted liberality of Congress readers whose pursuits are endlessly buried should be assured of finding the best literature of all lands it is a fact pregnant with meaning that the nations which possess extensive libraries maintain the foremost rank in civilization the universality of its range and of its usefulness should not lead any to overlook the fact that it is first of all the library of Congress here at the political capital of the country the senators and representatives who are responsible for the legislation of 70 millions of people are assembled in dealing with a wide range of interests involved there is almost no knowledge which may not at some time be wanted or which can come amiss here are settled or modified the principles of the internal economy and foreign policy of the nation here resort the innumerable promoters of local or individual or corporate or state or territorial or national or foreign interests all of whose propositions are to be examined weighed and brought to the test of reason precedent, justice and facts of record here are apportioned those expenditures of public money which carry on the government and tend to the development of the country here questions of internal revenue and tariff taxation public land policy the pension system, patents copyrights, postal service agriculture education Indian policy, internal commerce immigration and naturalization the fisheries, merchant shipping the army, the navy, the coast survey the civil service, the public debt the whole financial system and the people's measure of value are discussed and settled in the vast and complicated system involved in a government so complex as the American where state rights and federal supremacy are constantly broad in question congress and its committees are taxed with responsibilities which demand the widest political historical and judicial knowledge only a library of completely encyclopedic range filled with books and periodicals which illustrate every subject and throw light upon the history and policy of every nation is adequate to equip them for their work in like manner the supreme court and other courts of the United States established at the seat of government the interstate commerce commission and the tribunals frequently created to consider and report upon questions of national or international importance require and receive the constant aid of the rich assemblage of authorities here gathered it was found that more than two-thirds of the books relating to Venezuela and its border countries of South America needed for reference by the Venezuelan commission were in the library of congress the most important and valuable is the service rendered by this library to all the departments and bureaus of the government questions frequently arise requiring investigations so broad and extensive as to over tax the stores of even the largest library to supply all the information sought for to a national library which is in some degree the intellectual center of a great capital resort numerous seekers after books of information here is found the busy journalist turning over files of forgotten but carefully preserved newspapers to ascertain or to verify facts dates or opinions here the senator or representative seeks and finds precedence and illustrations authorities and legal decisions parliamentary history and the experience of nations to embody in his reports or apt citations and poetic gems to adorn his speeches come the students of history American and foreign assure to finding the chronicles that illustrate every period early or recent in whatever language here are found devotees of art studying the manuals or the histories of painting and sculpture or the engraved galleries of Europe for examples of the beautiful or come the architect the mechanic and the engineer in search of designs of models or of patents or of some book which contains the last word in electrical science here to come professional men of every class lawyers after leading cases clergyman investigating commentaries or religious homilies physicians reading medical or surgical or hygienic treatises teachers and professors who add to their learning the readers in the wide and attractive fields of literature are still more numerous than those who pursue the graver walks of science here the vast number and variety of works of fiction have their full quota of absorbed readers the enthusiasts of poetry and drama follow close upon and the student of biography finds no end of memoirs that are equally full of instruction essays and criticism enlist the attention of many while many more find it their delight in perusal of voyages and travels here the eager student of metaphysics or moral science feeds his intellect upon the great masters of human thought and the man ambitious of great reforms busies himself over the books on social science here comes at the student of natural science in quest of botany zoology or the other kingdoms of nature and the politician searches after the arguments and the history of parties here the zealous grubber after fax of genealogy burrows among endless tables of family births and marriages and the ever present investigator of heldry traces the blasenry of crest and coats of arms here frequent the feminine searchers after costumes fanciful or historical and here the lovers of music resort to feed their sense of harmony upon the scores of the great composers the student of oratory revels in the masterpieces of ancient or modern eloquence and the lover of classic lore luxuriates in the pages of greek or roman poets philosophers or historians the law of nations that undiscoverable science engages the baffled researchers while many others pursue through a world of controversial writings the naughty problems of finance some readers visit the library for prolonged and serious and fruitful investigation others for only momentary purposes to verify a quotation or to settle a wager about the origin the meaning or the orthography of a word many books have been written and many more have been edited by the aid of the copious stores of every great library to respond adequately to all these and a countless more demands upon its intellectual resources a national library must clearly be one of universal range this comprehensive aim for the national library will appear still more important when it is considered that it is in effect the only really representative library of the nation not that other collections and many of them let us hope are not equally far reaching in their scope and their aim at completeness but the government library being the only one endowed with the full copyright production of the country its laws of growth is necessarily in advance of that of other collections however well endowed provided only that adequate care be taken by congress for its proper increase in other directions the copyright law brings into it year by year virtually the entire intellectual product of the nation so far as protected by copyright as well as a steadily increasing share since the extension of the area of copyright protection through the international provisions of the act of 1891 of the works of foreign authors thus the national library acquires a great store of publications which the other libraries do without now from lack of means or of room or of disposition to purchase it is easy to say that the greater part of the books and periodicals thus acquired are trash but it is to be considered that very substantial reasons can be urged why one library should preserve the entire product of the American press irrespective of intrinsic value first every nation should have at its capital city all the books that its authors have produced in perpetual evidence of its literary history in progress or retrogression as the case may be secondly this complete assemblage of our literature in the library of the government that is of the whole people is an inestimable boon to authors and publishers many of whose books after years have elapsed may owe to such a collection their soul chance of preservation thirdly it is a most valuable aid to would be writers to have access to all the works that have been published in the special fields they seek to cultivate fourthly one comprehensive library inclusive and not exclusive should exist because all other libraries must be in a greater or lesser degree exclusive fifthly all American books should be preserved as models even if many of them are models to be avoided one learns as much frequently from the failures of others as from their successes sixthly it is already provided by law and very wisely that all copyright publications of whatever character shall be deposited in the library of Congress and the nation is as much bound to conserve these things in evidence of copyright as to preserve the models in the patent office in evidence of patent right seventhly there is no standard of selection or of exclusion that could be adopted which would stand against the fact of the endlessly varying judgments of different men or even of the same men at different periods what is pronounced trash today may have an unexpected value hereafter and the unconsidered trifles of the press of the 19th century may prove highly curious and interesting to the 20th as examples of what the ancestors of the men of that day wrote and thought about of course it should be one of the foremost aims of our national library to secure all books pamphlets maps and periodicals relating to our own country everything that can illustrate the discovery settlement history biography natural history or resources of America to be gathered the already rich collection of Americana comprises a large share of the earlier works respecting America nearly all of which are now rare as well as of the early printed books of the various American presses and many published in places where no books are now printed assiduous pains have been taken to increase these collections from auctions and from sale catalogs in this country and in Europe another function of the library of the nation is to furnish a repository for special collections of books manuscripts and memorials which may be dedicated by their donors to public use now for the first time the government of the United States is placed in a position where it can receive and preserve in a fitting manner in a noble fireproof edifice of ample proportions such gifts of private libraries et cetera as any of its citizens may present one such donation from a public spirited citizen of Washington the late Dr. J. M. Toner has already been presented and accepted by Congress it is to be expected that the example will be followed by other collectors of private libraries who feel a natural reluctance that their collections of special collections of manuscripts and memorials which may be dedicated to you costing years of time and much money to assemble should be scattered abroad after they have ceased to enjoy them leaving no memorial behind in this connection it should be noted that the national library furnishes the most obvious and appropriate repository for special collections of manuscripts when organized by collectors both alphabetical and chronological open to public use will form one of the cardinal objects to be kept in view this too long neglected field though zealously cultivated by the leading historical societies of the country has had no proper recognition at the hands of the American government while the manuscript papers of four American presidents have been purchased because offered to obtain and preserve those of the other presidents has been made nor has any fund been demoted by Congress to secure the papers of other public men all the principal nations of Europe and even the dominion of Canada have an archivist or custodian of manuscripts responsible for keeping indexing and increasing these collections whose importance as original documents illustrating the history and biography of the nation can hardly be overrated to avail of all opportunities offered for securing such manuscript collections and to seek out others thus preserving for posterity unique and valuable historical materials which would otherwise remain in private hands subject to constant diminution or destruction should be one cardinal function of the national library many such would be freely given by their owners if assured of permanent care and preservation in that institution the acquisition and preservation of pamphlet and periodical literature should be sedulously cultivated by national libraries no fact is more familiar to students than the rapid disappearance of these ephemeral but often valuable publications the chances of procuring any desired pamphlet a few months after its publication are incalculably smaller than those of securing copies of any book hence the importance of adding them to the one representative library of the nation while they are yet fresh and procurable as this species of literature is seldom protected by copyright the greater portion of the pamphlets of any period must remain unrepresented in the government library unless their authors will take the trouble by wise forethought to send copies of their productions to Washington of the great value of pamphlets as exponents of the thought of the time and the questions which agitate the public mind expressed frequently in condensed and forcible style there can be no question of the periodical literature in its vast extent and variety now including in the United States alone more than 20,000 different publications a national library should acquire and preserve the more important portions these in the absence of any possibility of providing room for all may be held to embrace one all American reviews and magazines with a selection of the leading English and European ones to the daily newspapers of the larger cities of the country and a few at least of the principal journals of England and the continent not forgetting the American republics and Canada three two at least of the most widely circulated journals of each state and territory in the union representing each political party this has been the established policy of the library for 30 years past and the bound files of these periodicals constitute one of the most largely used portions of the library only by keeping up full sets of the notable serials whether literary, political religious, historical, scientific legal, medical, technical agricultural, economic etc. can the library answer the just demands of the national legislature and of the public in whatever direction American libraries may be inferior to those of other and older nations they are at least in the larger collections well equipped with the literature of periodicals the materials thus furnished to the politician, the historical writer or the student of literature are of great and incalculable value a national library is not for one generation alone but for all time so much the more important is its function of handing down to the readers and students of the future a full and authentic literature of each age in its progressive growth to be found most vividly in the pages of the daily and weekly journals and the magazines and reviews of every class these periodicals furnish the best impress of the times which can be derived from any single source stored up in a permanent fireproof repository they are ever ready to be drawn upon by those who know how to use them and imperfectly understood function of the national library is to furnish evidence of literary property to all who are interested in copyrights this is rendered possible through the removal to Washington by the copyright act of 1870 of all original records of copyright previously scattered in more than 40 different offices throughout the various states the registry of copyrights having been transferred to the librarian Congress at the same time and continued ever since it is easy to follow out the record of any individual copyright and thus to trace questions concerning literary property for more than a century this facility is of great value to publishers and authors in the various negotiations constantly being made in questions of renewal of the terms of copyrights expiring or in suits at law to establish or to invalidate copyrights by litigation or to prevent infringement incident to this it is a part of the function of the library to produce any copyright book or other publication in its possession for inspection by whomever it may concern an incidental benefit of the library is found in its rich accumulation of works of the fine arts these include besides the suite of illustrations and galleries to be found in books hundreds of thousands of examples of graphic art many of them costly and valuable acquired by copyright arranged in classes in the spacious art gallery provided they form a most instructive and entertaining exhibit of the progress of the arts of design of the numerous and beautiful works of art embraced in the decoration of the library building the full account is taken elsewhere in the present volume suffice it to say here that readers and frequenters of the library who are surrounded with such architectural and artistic attractions will find rich suggestions on every hand as they pursue their several aims what more inspiring adjuncts to study or contemplation can exist than the sumptuous marble arches the statues of illustrious authors the graphic paintings and sculptured emblems illustrative of science literature and art and the many inscriptions drawn from the writings of the great scholars of the world the stately library building with its precious contents thus contributes not only to the public intelligence but also to elevate and to refine the public taste while every consideration favors the most liberal hours of frequentation and use of the collection it is manifestly not a proper function of a national library to furnish a circulating library for the people of the city in which it is located all experience proves that a great library of reference cannot be made a library of general circulation without destroying its function as a reference library every frequenter of the national library has a right to expect that the books it contains will be found when called for this is impossible if a large portion of them are out in circulation nor can this be met by the claim that duplicates would enable the library to loan freely there are no more than enough duplicates to meet the uses of members of congress who have the legal privilege of drawing books moreover the few who would be convenience by the loaning books would be favored only to the inconvenience of the many who would find very many of them continually absent from the shelves the greatest good of the greatest number would thus to be unjustly sacrificed the suggestion has been made that one of the two copies of books received by copyright might be utilized for the purposes of circulation this is conclusively met by the fact that the copyright deposits are a trust under the law like the models in the patent office and while one copy may properly be kept in the library for the use of congress and for public reference the other should be sedulously preserved in the copyright archives all comers however have free enjoyment of the benefits of this great library within its attractive walls and are welcomed by its liberal management to share its library scientific and artistic treasures and of the function of a national library 1897 by Ainsworth Rand Spofford 6th Librarian of Congress recording by David Wales