23 珊瑚王国(8)
The light from our glass coils produced magical effects at times, lingering on the wrinkled roughness of some natural arch, or some overhang suspended like a chandelier, which our lamps flecked with fiery sparks. Amid these shrubs of precious coral, I observed other polyps no less unusual: melita coral, rainbow coral with jointed outgrowths, then a few tufts of genus Corallina, some green and others red, actually a type of seaweed encrusted with limestone salts, which, after long disputes, naturalists ha一ve finally placed in the vegetable kingdom. But as one intellectual has remarked, "Here, perhaps, is the actual point where life rises humbly out of slumbering stone, but without breaking away from its crude starting point."
我们的蛇形玻璃管中的光学，照在这些天然的凹凸不平的拱形建筑物上面，照在像水晶烛台一般安排着的、火星点缀起来的下垂花板上，时时。发生魔术般迷人的力量，在珊瑚的丛枝中间，我又看到一样新奇古怪的珊瑚树，海虱形珊瑚，节肢蝶形珊瑚，又有些一团一聚成堆的珊瑚，有的是青，有的是红，真的像是铺在石灰地上的海藻，这些珊瑚堆，生物学家经过长久的讨论后，才明确地把它们列入植物中。但根据一位思想家所指出，“它：们或者就是生命刚从无知觉的沉睡中挣扎起来，又还没有完全脱离矿物的物一性一。
Finally, after two hours of walking, we reached a depth of about 300 meters, in other words, the lowermost limit at which coral can begin to form. But here it was no longer some isolated bush or a modest grove of low timber. It was an immense forest, huge mineral vegetation, enormous petrified trees linked by garlands of elegant hydras from the genus Plumularia, those tropical creepers of the sea, all decked out in shades and gleams. We passed freely under their lofty boughs, lost up in the shadows of the wa一ves, while at our feet organ-pipe coral, stony coral, star coral, fungus coral, and sea anemone from the genus Caryophylia formed a carpet of flowers all strewn with dazzling gems.
走了两个钟头，我们到了t9百米深的地方，那地方就是珊瑚在上面开始形成的最后边界。但在这里的，不是孤立隔开的珊瑚丛，不是低树林的丛木，而是，广大的森林，巨大的矿物草木，粗一大的石树，由那些海葛藤，漂亮好看的羽一毛一草花圈坏结合起来，受到各样一色一彩和反光的点缀，非常好看。它们的高大树枝深入海水一陰一暗中不见了，我们就在下一面自一由自在地走过，我们脚下有管状珊瑚，脑形贝，星状贝，菌状贝，石竹形珊瑚，形成一条花卉织成的地毯，现出光辉夺目的各种颜一色一。