2 THE VOYAGE OE H.M.S. CHALLENGER. 



Some of these ponds adjoined peat-marshes, yet their water was not at all peaty. In the 

 water of several no salt was perceptible to the taste, but Mr Moseley was informed that 

 they were Baiter at certain seasons. 



The islands are wholly built up of a calcareous limestone of varying degrees of hardness, 

 and there are numerous caves, those of Paynter's Vale being the most noteworthy, and 

 the most interesting to the botanist, as it is among them that the greatest variety of 

 plants is found. One of the features of the islands is the moving coral sand of the flat 

 parts of the coast. Where it is not bound by the roots of vegetation it gradually moves 

 onwards, burying all before it. 



Climate. 



Owing to their geographical position the Bermudas have a climate of very ecpiable 

 temperature, varying in the colder mouths from 55° to 70° Fahr. ; but the heat of the 

 summer months is very oppressive on account of the excessive moisture of a prevailing 

 tropical wind. The following table of the mean monthly temperatures compiled by Sir 

 J. H. Lefroy, will give some idea of the climate : — 



From this it will be seen that the winter temperature is about equal to the mean 

 summer temperature of the British Islands, and the mean annual temperature reaches 

 70'9° Fahr. The minimum winter temperature is rarely below 50° Fahr. On the whole, 

 the winter climate is agreeable, though storms are not infrecpieut and sometimes disastrous. 



Vegetation — Historical Sketch. 



The earliest reference to the vegetation of the Bermudas that we have seen is by 

 Henry May, 1 who was accommodated with a passage home from the West Indies in a 

 French man-of-war, commanded by Charles de la Barbotiere. On the 17th December 1593 

 this ship was wrecked on the north-west part of the " Isle of Bermuda." May says : 

 " This island is divided all into broken islands ; and the greatest part I was upon, which 

 might be some four or five miles long and two miles and a half over, being all woods, as 

 cedar {Juni2)erus bermiidiana] and other timber ; but cedar is the chiefest," Having 



1 llakluyt's Collection of the Early Voyages, Travels, and Discoveries of the English Nation. New edition, 

 1811, vol. iv. p. 55. 



