224 CORALS AND CORAL ISLANDS. 
The Bahamas are still farther within the belt of Atlantic 
storm tracks, and in the West Indian portion, as is well shown 
on the Chart of Atlantic Storms by Wm. C. Redfield in Vol- 
ume XXXI. of the American Journal of Science, 1837. They 
are situated just outside of the continental line where the 
tracks of many of the cyclones make the turn northward ; 
and this is reason enough for high drift-heaps and the great 
width of the areas. 
The Florida region feels less powerfully the influence of 
the storms, but their influence is sufficient for the accumula- 
tion of extensive drift-ridges and a wide spread of the sands 
over the bank. 
The Bermudas have suffered greatly from erosion. There 
are no running streams, but the coral sands and the limestones 
made from them are easily dissolved and removed by carbon- 
ated waters ; and consequently the rains, reinforced in their 
carbonic acid by more from vegetable or animal decomposi- 
tion in the soil, have done a large part of the erosion over 
the surface and of that of cavern-making beneath it ; while the 
waves have made cliffs, towers, and pinnacles, and caves too, 
along the coasts. The winds, moreover, have aided both. 
Professor Rice confirms the earlier accounts of Lieutenant 
Nelson and others, and speaks of the “innumerable caves” 
as “ranging in size from miniature grottos — the bijoux 
of Nelson—to extensive caverns.” One of the miniature 
caves had been opened at Paynter’s Vale in quarrying: its 
horizontal diameter was about five feet, its height at middle 
only two; but pigmy stalagmites rose from the floor toward 
the slender stalactites that were pendent from the roof, and 
along the sides the stalactites and stalagmites were in many 
cases united to form little columns; and all was of most 
exquisite finish. 
