CHAP. IV.] ST. THOMAS TO BERMUDAS. 311 
where on the islands, it very generally bears traces of having 
been at one time the floor of a cave; and as the weather-wear- 
ing of the surface goes on, the old concretionary structures 
are gradually brought out again, the parts specially hardened 
by a localized slow infiltration of lime resist disintegration long- 
est and project above the general surface. Often a surface of 
weathered rock is so studded with these symmetrical concre- 
tions, that it is hard to believe that one is not looking at the 
calcified stumps of a close-growing grove of palms. 
All the figures are portraits, and are taken from a single 
group on Boaz Island. 
Ireland Island, the extreme island of the chain to the west- 
ward, contains the dock-yard with the Government basin and 
the wonderful iron floating-dock, which was made in England, 
and towed across the Atlantic with so much labor and risk a 
few years ago. It is covered with Government buildings, and 
is under strict naval discipline—an appanage and extension, in 
fact, of the guard-ship, H.M.S. Zerror. Boaz Island succeeds ; 
it is united to Ireland Island by a bridge, and is the site of a 
military hospital and barrack. A short ferry then leads to 
Somerset Island, the richest and best cultivated, and perhaps 
the prettiest, part of Bermudas. The houses here are numer- 
ous and good, and the market-garden style of culture is fully 
carried out. The soil is excellent; red earth with decayed 
vegetable matter, and “mixed with it a white meale”’—that is 
to say, the large-grained free coral-sand. When we arrived in 
the beginning of April—very early in the season—they were 
already dispatching to the New York market weekly ship-loads 
of delicious early potatoes, for which they were getting seven- 
teen pounds a ton, onions at seven shillings and sixpence a 
box, and the earliest tomatoes—just beginning to ripen—at 
three shillings a small box. In Somerset the fields and gardens 
are small, separated and intersected by tall oleander hedges, 
and all the rugged ground is covered with cedar woods. 
