INTRODUCTION 



By J. Matthew Jones, F. R. S. C. 



Alone in mid-ocean, about COO miles east of the Carolina coast, lies 

 the little group of islets known as Bermuda. In former days, when 

 light-houses were few and far between, and navigation was beset with 

 greater danger and difficulty, these islands were counted among the 

 greatest terrors of the deep; lying in the track of merchantmen from 

 Europe to America, and surrounded by barrier reefs extending far out 

 to sea, they too often became the last home of mariners, whose ships 

 were driven in fury upon the breakers and dashed to atoms amid the 

 seething foam. 



There are no bold scenic effects to impress the visitor on his first ap- 

 proach; no elevated peaks or cone-like craters, nor hillside gorges. All 

 is on a small scale, and although with islands and rocky islets together, 

 over three hundred may be counted, yet the whole lie in a space of 23 

 miles by 3, and so slightly raised are they above the ocean surface that 

 the very highest point of land only reaches 250 feet. 



The Gulf Stream flows between the Bermudas and the eastern coast 

 of the United States, trending to the northeast as it reaches the latitude 

 of New York, thus affording the ocean to the southward protection from 

 the cold winds of the north duriug the winter months. On the eastern 

 edge of this heated concourse of waters which circle around from south 

 to northeast are the Bermudas ; while within this semicircular space 

 float vast masses of Gulf-weed, the Sargussum baccifenun, intermingled 

 with driftwood, seeds of trees and plants, and abundance of other veg- 

 etable matter bearing upon its surface, or within its tangled masses, 

 myriads of mollusks, crustaceans, and other invertebrate forms, which 

 float hither and thither as the winds direct, while thousands of fishes 

 frequent these aquatic i^reserves to feed upon them. It is to these float- 

 ing masses of Gulf- weed that the northern shores of America owe the 

 presence of isolated examples of tropic fishes taken generally duriug 

 the later months of summer. During that period the ocean surface is 

 rarely disturbed by violent storms, and the Gulf weed floats along in im- 



