CHAP. IV.] ST. THOMAS TO BERMUDAS. 303 
A curious circumstance had given me a particular interest in 
one of the Walsingham caves. In the year 1819, the late Sir 
David Milne, at that time commanding in chief on the North 
American and West Indian station, had a very fine stalagmite 
upward of eleven feet in length, averaging two feet in diame- 
ter, and weighing three and a half tons, removed from the cave 
and placed in the Museum of the University of Edinburgh, 
where the course of circumstances has now placed it in my 
custody. The stalagmite was sawed over near the floor of the 
cave, and in the year 1863 Sir Alexander Milne, then com- 
manding in chief on the same station, visited the cave and ex- 
amined carefully the stump of the column which had been re- 
moved forty-four years before by his father. It had made 
some attempt at reparation, and, in the year 1864, Mr. David 
Milne Home gave the results of his brother’s observations in 
a notice to the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He observed five 
drops of water falling on the stump, two at the rate of three 
or four drops in the minute, the others much less frequently. 
At the spot where the two drops were falling two small knobs 
of calcareous matter had been formed. On the part of the 
stump where the three drops were falling, the deposit consisted 
of only a thin crust. The total estimated bulk of the stalag- 
mite which had accumulated during forty-four years was about 
five cubic inches. Mr. Milne Home calculated that at that 
rate it would have taken six hundred thousand years to form 
the original stalagmite; but he points out very truly that it is 
highly improbable that the supply has been uniform, and that 
in all likelihood it was very much greater at an earlier period, 
and has been steadily decreasing, owing to the consolidation of 
the rock forming the roof of the cavern. 
When we examined the stump, which was about ten years 
later, the two drops were still falling, but apparently somewhat 
more slowly, one not quite three times in a minute, the other 
twice; this must depend, however, in some measure upon the 
