i86 CORALS AND CORAL LSLANDS. 



acter in the hope of discovering some satisfactory clue to their 

 primitive condition. I was aware that in different parts of the 

 islands road cuttings and well borings had revealed layers of 

 red earth at certain depths below the surface, the consistence 

 of which was similar to that now forming the present surface 

 soil ; and it did not require much force of imagination, after 

 personal inspection, to conceive that such layers of red earth 

 were first formed by the decomposition of vegetable matter 

 which grew upon former surfaces, and became covered to their 

 respective depths by accumulated masses of drift sand, which 

 from natural causes hardened into more or less compact sand- 

 stone. But these different layers were but a few feet beneath 

 the surface, and so, although interesting as throwing light upon 

 the gradual elevation of the land by drift material forming over 

 them, yet they afforded no evidence of a contrary nature— viz. 

 the submergence of the Bermuda group. Indeed, I have always 

 been led to suppose from appearances that the whole group 

 was the result of an upheaval of the ocean bed slightly above 

 the water level, and a gradual elevation afterward by means of 

 drift matter aided by the consolidating agency of reef-building 

 zoophytes encircling the whole with a barrier reef, and by 

 isolated patches gradually filling up the space within. The 

 investigations, however, which I have recently been able to 

 make, tend I think to prove that the barrier reef encircling the 

 islands, which has hitherto been considered an atoll, is merely 

 the remnant of the more compact calcareous rock which formed 

 the shore of a much more extensive island group than that 

 now existing. 



'' My views in this respect are borne out by the following 

 facts :— The barrier reef, as far as I have inspected it, is merely 

 ordinary calcareous rock coated with Serpulae, Nullipores, &c., 

 the reef builders working only in the sheltered waters between 

 the reef and the shore in three to eight fathoms. About two 

 years ago submarine blastings were carried on at the entrance 

 of Hamilton Harbour, and at a depth of over six fathoms a 

 cavern was broken into which contained stalactites and red 

 earth. Again within the last few months, I have, through the 



