A, EF. Verrill— The Bermuda Islands; Geology. 177 
to palmetto stumps there must have been a rather thick grove at 
this place. They terminate below at various levels in the hard 
limestone strata. The inner surface is rough and often stained toa 
dark manganese-brown color, but I could see no evidence of rootlets 
in these examples. 
e. Plants ; Ancient Peat and Cedars. 
On a former page (p. 81) I have mentioned the fact that a bed of 
peat, with red-clay soil and vertical stumps of cedars, was found, in 
1870, at Ireland Island, in making the excavation for the floating 
dock. This fact has often been mentioned as evidence proving the 
subsidence of the land. A fossil species of land-snail ( Peectlozonites) 
is also said to have been found in the same bed or in the eolian 
limestone below it. 
This bed of peat and soil was overlaid by layers of sand-rock and 
‘* coral-crust,” of considerable thickness, as shown in the accompany- 
ing section, copied from Thomson. 
; ZY rR —— 
___LOW WATER OF SPRING 1DES 7 \= 
LAYER OF = 
Mijn ey Yi LD PP WA yy Wy Wp pp 
77 a SC 
ip C) 10 0 0 40 60 60 70 Loy 30 09 fect 
Figure 58.—Section made in the excavations for the dry dock at Ireland Island, 
showing the bed of peat and red clay with cedar stumps, etc. After 
Thomson. 
The upper layer, about 25 feet below low-tide, was fine shell-sand and marl, 
4 feet thick; 2d layer, 8 feet thick, was ‘‘ coral crust,” containing shell-sand, 
fossil shells, and various corals, among them Mceandra labyrinthiformis ; 3d 
layer was shell-sand, mixed with corals, about 7 feet thick ; 4th layer, about 7 feet 
thick, was loosely coherent and harder shell-limestones ; the layer, of red earth 
and peat, with cedar stumps and bones of birds, was 2 to 4 feet thick, in a 
hollow eroded out of the latter ; 5th layer was hard zolian limestone, tested by 
borings to 52 feet, containing fossil land shells. The deepest part of the excava- 
tion was 50 feet. The upper surface of the red-soil bed was 44 to 50 feet below 
low-tide. 
It is evident that this bed of peat and vegetable remains must 
have been deposited during the period of “Greater Bermuda,” and 
