CUAiM.] BERMUDAS TO MADEIRA. 23 



divided into two. This would indicate an approach to such 

 forms as Nehalla, which has nine abdominal segments, or, at all 

 events, a tendency to a multiplication of segments which, if re- 

 ally existing, would scarcely allow the association of the genus 

 with the true schizopods. 



The weather was remarkably tine. During the day the isl- 

 and of Flores was visible like a cloud on the horizon about ftfty 

 miles to the northward. As our sounding was comparatively 

 shallow, our position was probably on a southern extension of 

 the rise which culminates northward in Flores and Corvo. One 

 of the most remarkable differences between the Acores and 

 Bermudas is that, while Bermudas springs up, an isolated peak, 

 from a great depth, the Agores seem to be simply the highest 

 points of a great plateau-like elevation, wdiich extends for up- 

 w^ard of a thousand miles from west to east, and appears to be 

 continuous with a belt of shallow water stretching to Iceland in 

 the north, and connected probably with the " Dolphin Rise " to 

 the southward — a j^lateau which in fact divides the North At- 

 lantic longitudinally into two great valleys, an eastern and a 

 western. The three previous soundings, the first 330 miles 

 from Fayal, had already shown that we were passing over the 

 gradual ascent ; and this dredging, although not very fruitful 

 in results, gave indications, by the presence of some compara- 

 tively shallow-water northern species, of a northern extension 

 of its conditions. 



Although the two remote little archipelagoes out in the At- 

 lantic have many things in common, the first impression of the 

 Azores is singularly different from that of Bermudas. Long 

 before the white cottages, straggling in broken lines almost 

 round the islands on the top of the sea-cliff, or grouped in vil- 

 lages round their little churches — white, quaintly edged with 

 black, like mourning envelopes — in the mouths of richly wood- 

 ed ravines, have become visible, the eye has been dwelling with 

 pleasure on the bold outline of the land, running ujd everywhere 



