NONSUCH 



on the submerged reefs, although even here it is 

 only a veneer of encrusted life. 



Bermuda is undoubtedly the apex of a mighty 

 volcanic mountain. A recent deep boring, made in 

 the hope of finding fresh water, failed completely 

 in its purpose, but provided absolute proof of 

 ancient volcanic activity. The first three hundred 

 and sixty feet showed limestone such as we find 

 today everywhere in Bermuda. For the next two 

 hundred feet yellowish clay-like rocks represented 

 decomposed volcanic tufa. From here down to the 

 extreme limit of boring, fourteen hundred feet, 

 there was nothing but black volcanic rock, and this 

 undoubtedly extended down to the very ocean floor. 

 The only lava I have seen is a bit from the gizzard 

 of a sandpiper, freshly arrived from Greenland. 

 Everywhere on all the islands, are crags and cliffs 

 and outcroppings of stratified rock, soft where 

 newly exposed and hardened to the consistency of 

 steel where lashed by breakers. The multitude of 

 superimposed leaves of stone do not mark past 

 lava flows nor deposits on an ancient sea-bottom, 

 but sheets of wind-blown sand swirled over pre- 

 historic dunes. 



As long as my watery world reigned supreme I 

 could well mark my data as millions upon millions 

 of years B.C., but when the low afternoon sun began 

 to sift through the rain, and I could dimly see the 

 fissures and crags of the hardened wind-blown 

 rocks of Nonsuch, then eons of time passed quickly 

 and I again came down the scale to, geologically 



8 



