Throughout the early decades of the nineteenth century when British naval ships were actively surveying the waters of the Great Barrier Reef, the new science of geology was becoming increasingly important in the search for an understanding of the origin and structure of coral reefs. In particular, growing evidence of marine deposits on land, especially in elevated strata, was attracting much speculative attention and rapidly initiated a new direction of investigation in the long history of inquiry into the nature of coral.

MYSTERY OF CORAL: THE ANCIENT QUEST

Already, a formidable record of theories and explanations concerning coral had developed over several millennia: in terms of recorded observations, from the time of Aristotle during the reign of Alexander the Great in the fourth century bc. The word ‘coral’ itself first appears in the work of Theophrastus (c.372–c.285 bc) who succeeded Aristotle as director of the Lyceum. In his treatise on minerals, Peri lithon (‘On Stones’), Theophrastus described a kind of rock by the term kouralion, later transliterated into Latin as curalium, then, centuries later, into Italian as corallo, and French as corail, with cognates in all European languages. Only a fragment of Peri lithon survives today, but we find there the first mention of coral in a brief description: ‘coral is similar to a stone, is shaped like a root, and found in the sea’ (VII.39).