268 BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 
The basis of these islands under water must be only mat- 
ter for conjecture. The coral insect is at work in the sea 
around them, but the land itself is chiefly formed of sand, 
composed of finely broken shells and corals, first cast on 
shore by the waves during storms, and then arranged into 
little hills by the winds. Saline particles seem to form a crust, 
which new storms again cover with fresh sand, and thus are 
the hills formed into laminated rock, none of the layers, how- 
ever, lying steeper than the sand would roll to. In higher 
latitudes, frost would annually break up the formation and 
destroy it; but at Bermuda, water does not freeze. The win- 
ters of Virginia are comparatively very cold, and this may 
perhaps be the reason for a difference in quality in the cedars 
of the two countries. The softest of the Bermuda rock is 
cut for building purposely by the carpenter’s cross-cut saw, 
and the finest roots of the cedar-trees are often found to have 
grown through this soft building-stone. The dark hue of 
the Cedar bestows a sombre appearance on the landscape of 
Bermuda, yet it isa very valuable gift of nature to the islands. 
Besides its worth as timber, being an evergreen of the earliest 
growth, it is admirably well adapted to form shelter against 
high winds, which, of all lands, small islands, lying in mid- 
ocean, require the most. Under the shelter of the Cedar; 
the little vallies between the undulated hills, are capable of 
forming the finest orange-groves ; for the Bermuda orange is 
of large size and of excellent quality. 
The Bermuda Cedar, where it has room enough to expand 
itself, is of a conical shape, with wide-spreading branches at 
bottom, and when healthiest, with a slender-pointed top. 
If neglected, the trees grow close together, and their slen- 
der summits striking against their nearest neighbours in 
storms of wind, become broken, to the great injury of the 
trees. Ina young state, they may be trimmed and clipped, — 
as the yew tree, and, like it, formed into a very close hedge — 
They are difficult to transplant, except when very small, and E 
the entire tap-root taken up uninjured, along with a sod OT — 
ball of earth. 
