They are originally made ring-shaped, but the action of the ocean serves to throw fragments of rock into the inner depression, which thus fills up; firm land appears; the rock crumbles into soil; the winds and birds and currents bring seeds here, and soon the new island is covered with verdure.
These little creatures have played a part in the past quite as important as in the present.

All Germany rests upon a bank of coral; and they seem to have been most active during the Oolitic Period." "How do the creatures act ?" asked Featherstone.
"Nobody knows," replied the doctor.
A silence now followed, which was at last broken by Oxenden.
"After all," said he, "these monsters and marvels of nature form the least interesting feature in the land of the Kosekin.

To me the people themselves are the chief subject of interest.

Where did they get that strange, all-pervading love of death, which is as strong in them as love of life is in us ?" "Why, they got it from the imagination of the writer of the manuscript," interrupted Melick.
"Yes, it's easy to answer it from your point of view; yet from my point of view it is more difficult.

I sometimes think that it may be the strong spirituality of the Semitic race, carried out under exceptionally favorable circumstances to the ultimate results; for the Semitic race more than all others thought little of this life, and turned their affections to the life that lives beyond this.