CORAL (kor'al), (Heb. raw-maw', rcd coral.) It is usually understood to be denoted by the word as above, in Job xxviii :18; Ezek. xxvn: 16; and this interpretation is not unsuitable, al though the etymology is not well made out, and the dialects afford little support. The ancient translators were evidently much perplexed to de termine whether the word peninint (Job xxviii: 18; Provo xx:15; xxxi:to; Lam. iv:7) meant corals or pearls. This will always be doubtful ; but the text in Lam. iv:7, by de scribing the article as rcd, suggests a preference of the former. Winer indeed remarks that it is scarcely credible such a product should have circulated under two different names (if rainoth also means coral) ; but surely there is no difficulty in conceiving that one word may have denoted coral generally, while another may have distin guished that red coral, which was the most es teemed and the most in use for ornament.
Coral is a marine calcareous substance of vari ous colors and forms, the production of a species of zoophyte. In growth and external appearance, coral is like a beautiful plant, being fixed by its root to the rock, and spreading out its branches from main stems. But it has not the lift of a plant.
It is the work of innumerable animals, which ap parently live in communities, and so connected, that the prey consumed by one contributes to nourish all. The animal is very simple: it is nothing more than a sack or bag, with eight tenta cula, or arms, to seize its prey. This animal ap pears to possess the faculty of abstracting cal careous particles from the ocean, and depositing them in a soli,: mass. So rapid is their multipli cation, so speedy the growth of their work, that it eventually forms reefs of rock, not only danger ous to navigation, but which, rising above the wa ter, become islands. fit for the abode of men. Among these are the famed Bermuda Islands in the Atlantic, the waters surrounding them.brought by the Gulf stream, being warm enough to allow the coral animals to live and work.