throug-h submarine and volcanic upheaval, 

 and that sparse as at Hrst were the remnants 

 of vegretaVjle life left undestroyed, these as 

 favourabl(3 conditions arose in the course of 

 time a^ain took up their old habitat, and as 

 in the human race generation succeeds genera- 

 tion, so as time rolled on the herb-bearing 

 seed after its kind reclothed barreuess. There 

 are geological evidences in the caves of Ber- 

 muda that 800,000 years have rolled by in the 

 formation of one stalagmite, which now lies 

 in the Edinburgh museum, so that these 

 islands may be a relic of the lost Atlantis, a 

 theory by no means improbable, or that an- 

 other Bermuda, the indications only of which 

 are now left by what is known as North Rock 

 and its reefs, lying north of the present 

 islands, was that mountain peak, whilst the 

 present land was subsequently raised long 

 aftor the coral polyps had done its work of 

 reconstruction on other submerged peaks. 



The natural sandy and light soil of Ber- 

 muda is by no means eondiKUve, from its ele- 

 m<Mits, to growth, as is evidenced by the 

 necessity for application of fertilizers to pro- 

 duce more than two or three crops. The hol- 

 lows between the hills, where there is an accu- 

 mulation of decayed vegetable matter, almost 

 peaty in its composition, scarcely warrant 

 the name of marshes, although closely ap- 

 proaching such formation. The washings of 

 the hills clothed with the universal juniper, 

 have for centuries contributed to the forma- 

 tion of humus or veg^itable soil, but the ab- 

 sence of the ordinary deciduous trees of the 

 north militates against the formation of leaf- 

 mould which maintains northern soils. 



The decaying coral rock, decomposed as it 

 is by atmospheric action, contains no chem- 

 ical elements as in other geological forma- 



