A. E. V err ill — The Bermuda Inlands. 477 



crust has been formed, an unusually severe storm may cut into the 

 weaker spots of the hills, where the sand is least consolidated and 

 protected and, by undercutting, in a few hours it may drift away 

 immense quantities of sand, depositing it farther inland. 



We noticed, in 1901, marked instances of this mode of action on 

 the sides of some <>f the Tucker's Town dunes, where the wind had 

 very recently cut perpendicular sections. Nearly the whole region 

 about Tucker's Town is covered with this more or less loose sand, 

 which extends about tAvo miles along the shoi*e ; in many places it is 

 becoming covered with vegetation, such as the sage-bush and black- 

 berry (IScazvola), etc This district looks as if it had always been a 

 barren, sandy region, but it is probable that in Governor Tucker's 

 time (1616), when he had sugar cane and figs planted here, these 

 sands had not invaded the district, and that the soil was fertile. 

 The Tucker's Town lands are often mentioned by early writers as 

 cultivated. 



The early settlers made no mention of shifting sands, nor did they 

 complain of the barrenness of the soil in the several places where 

 active sand-dunes have prevailed in modern times.* Lieutenant 

 Nelson, writing in 1837, says that the Tucker's Town sand-dunes 

 were reported to have become active about 60 years previously, or 

 about 1777. 



Probablv the cutting of the cedars and burninsr of the brush and 

 vines to clear the lands, combined with the disturbance of the surface 

 of the soil to build roads or in cultivating it, usually led to the 

 activity of the de-tructive sands in these later times. 



Norwood mentioned worthless sandy land as existing on Ireland 

 Island, m his day, but not elsewhere, nor do we find any particular 

 mention of any such drifting sands in the voluminous history of 

 Governor Butier, 1612-24. 



Lieutenant Nelson, in his account of the geology of the island, 

 1837-40, described active and extensive sand-dunes as existing at the 

 time of his residence (1827-33), both at Elbow Bay and Tucker's 



* In the "Orders and Constitutions" of the Bermuda Company, adopted in 

 1621, there was an allotment of a tract of public land, in these terms : "save 

 that two hundred acres of the Hand called Davies Hand [Davids] shall be annexed 

 to Harrington and Hamilton's Tribe, to make recompense for the alleaged 

 sterility of the Land in that Tribe." (No. 107.) 



This sterile land could not have been that of the Tucker's Town sand-hills, 

 and the neck of land farther east, because the latter was, at that time, a part of 

 the public land, not a part of either Tribe. It may have been the salt marshes 

 and swamps that were referred to. 



