Coral Life [pp. 354-360]

THE LADIES' REPOSITORY.
Shield could there be seen, or spear,
Among forty thousand in Israel?
9. My heart is toward the rulers of Israel,
Those freely offering themselves among the people;
Bless Jehovah!
Io. 0, riders of dappled she-asses,
Reposers on splendid carpets,
And travelers on the way,
Meditate the song.
. From the voice of spoil-dividers between the water-troughs,
There commemorate the righteous acts of Jehovah,
The righteous acts of his government in Israel,
Then go down to the gates the people of Jehovah.
I2. Awake, awake, O Deborah!
Awake, awake, utter a song!
Arise, O Barak!
And lead captive thy captives, 0 son of Abinoam I
-3. Then came down a remnant of the nobles of the people,
Jehovah came down to me among the migh,ty ones;
14. Out of Ephraim, whose root is in Amalek,
After thee was Benjamin among thy people;
Out of Machir came down rulers,
And out of Zebulon those holding the commander's stag
I5. And the princes in Issachar were with Deborah,
Even Issachlar, the support of Barak,
In the valley was he sent at his feet.
By the streams of Reuben,
Great were the determinations of heart.
.6. Why sattest thou between the double sheep-folds?
To hear the pipings of the herds?
By the streams of Reuben,
Great were the deliberations of heart I
I7. Gilead beyond the Jordan dwelt,
And Dan, why sojourns he in ships?
Asher sat at the shore of the sea,
And upon his harbors let him dwell.
i8. Zebulon, a people that scorned his soul to death,
And Naphtali, upon the high places of the field.
59. There came kings; they fought;
Then fought the kings of Canaan,
At Taanach. upon the waters of Megiddo,
Spoil of silver they did not take.
20. From heaven they fought,
The stars from their courses fought with Sisera.
21. The river Kishon swept them away,
The river of ancient times, the river Kishon.
Trample down, O my soul, the strong!
22. Then smote the hoofs of the horse,
From the gallopings, the gallopings of his heroes.
23. Curse Meroz, said the angel of Jehovah,
Curse with a curse her inhabitants;
For they came not to the help of Jehovah,
To the help of Jehovah among the mighty ones.
24. Blessed above women be Jael,
The wife of Heber the Kenite;
Above women in the tent let her be blessed.
25. Water he asked; milk she gave;
In a bowl of the nobles she brought him curds.
a6. Her hand to the tent-pin she stretched forth,
And her right-hand to the hammer of the workmen,
And she hammered Sisera, she crushed his head,
And she smote through and transfixed his temples.
27. Between her feet he sank down, he fell;
Where he sank down there he fell slain.
I28. Through the window she bent forward, and cried aloud,
The mother of Sisera through the lattice-window:
"Wherefore delays his chariot to come?
Wherefore linger the paces of his royal steed?"
29. The wise ones of her princesses answer her.
Yea, also she returns answer to herself:
30. "Are they not finding, dividing the spoil?
One maiden, two maidens to the head of a hero;
Spoil of dyed garments for Sisera,
Spoil of dyed garments; embroidery;
A dyed garment of double embroidery for the necks of the
spoil. "
3x. So shall perish all thy enemies, O Jehovah!
But they that love him shall be as the going forth of the sun
in his strength.
ABOUT CORAL LIFE.
, HE group of Corallines consists of a single
genus, Corallium, having a common axis,
inarticulate, solid, and calcareous, the typical species of which furnishes matter hard,
brilliant, and richly colored, and much sought
after as an object of adornment. This interesting zoophyte and its product require to be
described with some detail.
From very early times the coral has been
adopted as an object of ornament. From the
highest antiquity, also, efforts were made to
ascertain its true origin, and the place assignable to it in the works of Nature. Theophrastus, Dioscorides, and Pliny considered that the
coral was a plant. Tournefort, in I700, reproduced the same idea. Reaumur slightly modified this opinion of the ancients, and declared
his opinion that the coral was the stony product
of certain marine plants. Science was in this
state when a naturalist, who has acquired a
great name, the Count de I\Iarsigli, made a discovery which threw quite a new light on the
true origin of this natural product. He announced that hle had discovered the flowers of
the coral. He represented these flowers in his
fine work, " La Physique de la Mer," which
includes many interesting details respecting
this curious product of the ocean. How could
it be longer doubted that the coral was a plant,
since he had seen its expanded flowers? No
one doubted it, and R6aumur proclaimed everywhere the discovery of the happy Academician.
Unhappily a discordant note soon mingled in
this concert. It even emanated from a pupil
of Marsigli!
Jean Andr6 de Peyssonnel was born at Marseilles in I694. He was a student of medicine
and natural history at Paris when the Acacdmie
des Sciences charged him with the task of
studying the coral on the sea-shore. Peyssonnel began his observations in the neighborhood
of Marseilles in I723. He pursued it on the
North African coast, where he had been sent
on a mission by the Government. Aided by a
long series of observations as exact as they
were delicate, Peyssonnel demonstrated that
the pretended flowers which the Count de Mar
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