CHAP. IV.] ST. THOMAS TO BERMUDAS. 271 
temperature actually rises, notwithstanding the more northern 
latitude. The lines representing 18°, 17°, and 16° C. are de- 
pressed, each nearly 50 fathoms; and a subsequent observation 
(Station LVII.), about fifteen miles from Bermuda, shows that 
the same conditions of temperature are maintained right up to 
the islands. 
On the 3d of April soundings were taken successively in 
2475, 2250, 1820, and 950 fathoms, gradually passing up the 
slope of the reef. The bottom in all cases had a basis of soft, 
white, calcareous mud, evidently produced by the disintegra- 
tion of the Bermuda reef and of the multitude of pteropod 
shells which sink down from the surface. At a distance of ten 
miles or so from the reef, the soundings are sometimes actually 
composed of the fragments of surface-shells, to the almost en- 
tire exclusion of the homogeneous detritus of the coral. 
The next day we sounded at various depths from 780 to 120 
fathoms. The fauna seemed to be, on the whole, scanty, the 
finely divided calcareous mud being probably unfavorable to 
the existence of most of the higher forms of animal life. 
Among the few interesting species which we met with at this 
station were a fine specimen of the Euryalid Ophionereis lum- 
bricus, Lyman, attached to a gorgonia; a large, handsome 
Spatangus, allied to S. purpureus; and some fragments of Ca- 
lopleurus floridanus, A. AGassiz, a very singular urchin, near 
Cidaris in some respects, but with the spines enormously long 
in proportion to the body. 
A pilot came on board off St. George’s, and we passed slow- 
ly through the intricate and dangerous “narrows” between the 
‘reefs—the natural defenses of the northern coast of Bermudas, 
which make any artificial fortifications almost unnecessary—and 
‘anchored in Grassy Bay in the evening. 
Bermudas, or “ Somers,” or, by corruption, “ The Summer Isl- 
ands,” seems to have been discovered about the year 1503, by 
Juan Bermudez, a Spaniard, in the vessel La Garza, having on 
