Crossword-Solution: ASTR 4 letters, 83 clues 🏆 scrabble score: 4

How might a man not wander from his wits Pierced through with eyes, but that I kept mine own Intent on her, who rapt in glorious dreams, The second-sight of some Astræan age, Sat compassed with professors: they, the while, Discussed a doubt and tost it to and fro: A clamour thickened, mixt with inmost terms Of art and science: Lady Blanche alone Of faded form and haughtiest lineaments, With all her autumn tresses falsely brown, Shot sidelong daggers at us, a tiger-cat In act to spring.

Many small fragments, however, of _Millepora alcicornis_ were brought up; and on the arming from an eight-fathom cast, there was a perfect impression of an Astræa, apparently alive.

Fragments of the _Millepora alcicornis_ and of an Astræa were also numerous; the former is found, but not in proportionate numbers, in the hollows on the reef; but the Astræa I did not see living.

They consisted in their lower part of hard calcareous sandstone, and in their upper of great blocks of several species of Astræa and Madrepora, loosely aggregated; they were divided into irregular beds, dipping seaward, in one hillock at an angle of 8°, and in the other at 18° I suspect that the superficial parts of the reefs, which have been upraised together with the islands they fringe, have generally been much more modified by the wearing action of the sea, than those of Mauritius.

Moreover, at Keeling atoll, and probably in many other cases, the different kinds of corals would have to encroach on each other; thus the Nulliporæ cannot increase outwards without encroaching on the Porites and _Millepora complanata_, as is now taking place; nor these latter without encroaching on the strongly branched Madreporet, the _Millepora alcicornis_, and some Astræas; nor these again without a foundation being formed for them within the requisite depth, by the accumulation of sediment.