No. 2. — A Visit to the Bermudas in March, 1894. By 

 Alexander Agassiz. 



GENERAL DESCRIPTION. 



Before completing my article on the Bahamas I was anxious to visit 

 the Bermudas. During my visit I chartered a sea-going tug, and was 

 thus able in a comparatively short time to cover every interesting spot 

 on the shores of the islands and on the inner and outer ledge flats. 

 During the spring of 1894 I spent about a month in their examination, 1 

 and find that the story of their present condition is practically that of 

 the Bahamas, with the exception that at the Bermudas we have an 

 epitome as it were of the physical changes undergone by the Bahamas. 

 One cannot fail to be struck with the insignificance of the corals as com- 

 pared with those of Florida, of the Bahamas, and of the Windward Isl- 

 ands. It is true that on the ledge patches inside of the so called " ledge 

 flats " the Gorgonians and Millepores are very flourishing, but the devel- 

 opment of the true reef builders, of the massive corals, is insignificant ; 

 while the absence of Madrepores is remarkable, and changes the whole 

 aspect of the coral growth. 



I shall have little to add to the description of the Bermudas as given 

 by Nelson, Rein, Thomson, Rice, and Heilprin, but I am inclined to take a 

 different view of the part which the corals now growing there have played 

 in the formation of the reef ledge fiats. The corals have not added any 

 material part to the reefs; they form only a thin veneer over the disin- 

 tegrated ledges of seolian rock which constitute the so called reef off 

 the south shore of Bermuda and the ledge flats of the reef ring near 

 the outer edge of the Bermuda Bank. ^Eolian rock ledges underlie the 

 coral growth not only on the patches off the south shore and on the 

 ledge flats of the outer reef, but they also underlie the so called patches 

 and heads forming the flats which extend on both sides of the main 

 channel and divide the lagoons or interior waters of the bank into irreg- 



1 Notes from the Bermudas. By Alexander Asrassiz. From a letter to Professor 

 James D. Dana, dated Bermuda, March 12, 1894. American Journal of Science, 

 3d ser., Vol. XLVII. No. 282, June, 1804. 



VOL. XXVI. — NO. 2. 14 



