MOUNT BERMUDA 



As to the geology of Bermuda, I combined all the 

 observations I could make, and then picked the 

 brains of the best geologists I knew, and patting 

 the islands on the back said to myself, " And so, 

 that is how you came to be Bermuda." 



In the course of my more serious researches, to 

 which these essays may be said to be only an au- 

 thentic fringe, I made a series of dredge hauls on 

 the bottom of my deep-sea study area. One memo- 

 rable day, my sturdy httle cob-web of wire brought 

 the big dredge to the surface twelve miles off shore. 

 Soundings had shown that the bottom here was 

 fifteen hundred fathoms or a full mile and a half 

 beneath our keel. The dredge frame was twisted 

 and bent into a V by the roughness over which it 

 had passed, which was in itself surprising, for at 

 such a depth the bottom of the ocean, even if rolling, 

 is usually smooth. 



The netting itself was not torn, and although 

 there were only a few handfuls of abyssal loot at 

 the end, these were most amazing. They consisted 

 wholly of water-worn shells, bits of coral and 

 rounded pebbles — indisputable proofs of a sub- 

 merged beach. There was half a hundred of one 

 species of white bivalve which has been found fossil 

 in Bermuda cliffs thirty fe^et above the present 

 ocean level and most of the shells are of West In- 

 dian species. 



So here is an entirely new glimpse of the past of 

 Bermuda. The glacial earths and wind-blown sand 

 are unquestionably facts. But ages and ages before 



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