It's in this last that precious coral belongs, an unusual substance that, at different times, has been classified in the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms.  珊瑚属于珊瑚科，是一种奇怪的东西，曾经先后被分人矿物、植物和动物类。

　　Medicine to the ancients, jewelry to the moderns, it wasn't decisively placed in the animal kingdom until 1694, by Peysonnel of Marseilles. 在古代它是治病的药方，在近代是装饰的珍宝，一直封1694年：，马赛人皮桑尼尔才明确地把它们作为动物分类。

　　A coral is a unit of tiny animals assembled over a polypary that's brittle and stony in nature.  珊瑚是一群聚集在易碎的和石质伪珊瑚树上的微生物的总体。

　　These polyps have a unique generating mechanism that reproduces them via the budding process, and they have an individual existence while also participating in a communal life.  这些珊瑚虫有一种独特的繁殖力，像枝芽滋生一样，它们有自己本身的生命，同时又有共同的生命，

　　Hence they embody a sort of natural socialism.  所以这种情形好像是一种自然的社会主义；

　　I was familiar with the latest research on this bizarre zoophyte 我知道最近关于这种奇怪的植虫动物的研究结果，

　　which turns to stone while taking on a tree form,  照生物学家的很正确的观察，

　　as some naturalists have very aptly observed-and nothing could have been more fascinating to me than to visit one of these petrified forests that nature has planted on the bottom of the sea. 珊瑚虫在分支繁殖中就起矿化作用，对我来说，去参观大自然种植在海底下的一处石质森林，实在是最有兴趣不过的了。

　　We turned on our Ruhmkorff devices and went along a coral shoal in the process of forming, which, given time, will someday close off this whole part of the Indian Ocean.  兰可夫探照器使用起来，我们沿着正在形戌的珊瑚层走去，这些珊瑚脉经过相当的时间，有一夭将要把印度洋的这一部分海面封闭起来。

　　Our path was bordered by hopelessly tangled bushes, formed from snarls of shrubs all covered with little star-shaped, white-streaked flowers.  路旁尽是错杂的小珊瑚树所形成的混乱的珊瑚树丛，枝权上遮满白光闪闪的星状小花。

　　Only, contrary to plants on shore, these tree forms become attached to rocks on the seafloor by heading from top to bottom. 不过，跟陆地上的植物正相反，固定在海底岩石上的珊瑚树的枝权，全是从上到下发展的。

　　Our lights produced a thousand delightful effects while playing over these brightly colored boughs.  灯光在色彩很鲜艳的枝叶中间照来照去，发生无穷的美丽迷人的景象。