TNE Ono CC is @ Ni 
By J. MatrHew JONES, F. R.S. C, 
Alone in mid-ocean, about 600 miles east of the Carolina coast, lies 
the little group of islets known as Bermuda. In former days, when 
light-houses were few and far between, and navigation was beset with 
greater danger and difficulty, these islands were counted among the 
greatest terrors of the deep; lying in the track of merchantmen from 
Europe to America, and surrounded by barrier reefs extending far out 
to sea, they too often became the last home of mariners, whose ships 
were driven in fury upon the breakers and dashed to atoms amid the 
seething foam. 
There are no bold scenic effects to impress the visitor on his first ap- 
proach; no elevated peaks or cone-like craters, nor hillside gorges. All 
is on a Small scale, and although with islands and rocky islets together, 
over three hundred may be counted, yet the whole lie in a space of 23 
miles by 3, and so slightly raised are they above the ocean surface that 
the very highest point of land only reaches 250 feet. 
The Gulf Stream flows between the Bermudas and the eastern coast 
of the United States, trending to the northeast as it reaches the latitude 
of New York, thus affording the ocean to the southward protection from 
the cold winds of the north during the winter months. On the eastern 
edge of this heated concourse of waters which circle around from south 
to northeast are the Bermudas; while within this semicircular space 
float vast masses of Gulf-weed, the Sargassum bacciferum, intermingled 
with driftwood, seeds of trees and plants, and abundance of other veg- 
etable matter bearing upon its surface, or within its tangled masses, 
myriads of mollusks, crustaceans, and other invertebrate forms, which 
float hither and thither as the winds direct, while thousands of fishes 
frequent these aquatic preserves to feed upon them. Itis to these float- 
ing masses of Gulf-weed that the northern shores of America owe the 
presence of isolated examples of tropic fishes taken generally during 
the later months of summer. During that period the ocean surface is 
rarely disturbed by violent storms, and the Gulf weed floats along in im- 
IX 
