Virgin Mary is said to have done many miracles in favour of the sea-faring people. W. Lon. 76. 0. N. Lat.in natural history, the name of a genus of submarine substances; the characters of which are, That they are almost of a stony hardness, resembling the corals, and are usually divided into branches, and pervious by many holes or cavities, which are frequently of a stellar figure.

In the Linnaean system, this is a genus of lithophyta: The animal that inhabits it is the Medusa; it comprehends 39 species. According to Donati, the madrepora is like the coral as to its hardness, which is equal to bone or marble; the colour is white when polished; its surface is lightly wrinkled, and the wrinkles run lengthwise of the branches; in the centre there is a sort of cylinder, which is often pierced thro' its whole length by two or three holes. From this cylinder are detached about 17 laminae, which run to the circumference in straight lines; and are transversely intersected by other laminae, forming many irregular cavities; the cellules, which are composed of these laminae ranged into a circle, are the habitations of little polypes, which are extremely tender animals, generally transparent, and variegated with beautiful colours. M. de Peyssonel observes, that those writers who only considered the figures of submarine substances, denominated that class of them, which seemed pierced with holes, fora; and those, the holes of which were large, they called madrepora. He defines them to be all those marine bodies which are of a stony substance, without either bark or crust, and which have but one apparent opening at each extremity, furnished with rays that proceed from the centre to the circumference. He observes that the body of the animal of the madrepora, whose flesh is so soft that it divides upon the gentlest touch, fills the centre; the head is placed in the middle, and surrounded by several feet or claws, which fill the intervals of the partitions observed in this substance, and are at pleasure brought to its head, and are furnished with yellow papillae. He discovered that its head or centre was lifted up occasionally above the surface, and often contracted and dilated itself like the pupil of the eye: he saw all its claws moved, as well as its head or centre. When the animals of the madrepora are destroyed, its extremities become white. In the madrepora, he says, the animal occupies the extremity; and the substance is of a stony but more loose texture than the coral. This is formed, like other substances of the same nature, of a liquor which the animal discharges; and he farther adds, that there are some species of the polype of the madrepora which are produced singly, and others in clusters.