14& Notes on the Bermtidas. 



in a direction nearly S. W. and N. E, and on wLicli Hamilton the' 

 chief Town of the Islands and tlie Seat of Government is situated ;. 

 St. Georo'e's, about 3^ miles long, on wliicli is a Town of tlie 

 same name, Garrisons, and tlie liead-quarters of tlie Military ;- 

 Somerset, 3 miles, nnited by a bridge to the main-land;. 

 Ireland's Island, 1^ miles long. The others which are of any 

 impoi'tance lie chiefly on the southern side of the group, at its 

 north-eastern extremity. The whole islands are thus not more 

 than 25 miles long by from 5 miles to a few yards, in some partsj 

 broad. The land has the appearance from th.e sea of a range of 

 low undulated hills, none of which rise to a higher elevation than 

 250 feet. 



The geological formation of this group is somewhat peculiar. 

 The lower strata of which it is composed, and upon w^hich it has 

 been built, is a hard calcareous sandstone. It is exposed chiefly 

 on the south side of the main island at low water mark, and,. 

 in situ, it lies in an almost horizontal position. By the force of 

 the swell which rolls in from the South, sometimes with fearful 

 violence, large masses of this rock are torn from their bed?, broken 

 into fi'agments, and heaped up in distorted forms. The mass of 

 rock superimposed upon this base is composed of what may be 

 termed a corallinaceous sandstone of different degrees of indura- 

 tion and of fineness. Some parts, by reason of exposure to the 

 atmosphere and other causes, have become extremely hard, and 

 have resisted the action of the elements apparently for ages. 

 This formation has a curiously twisted and irregular stratification, 

 or rather it can scarcely be said to have any proper stratification 

 at aU. The section it is true presents us with lines of rock running 

 through it at all angles of inclination a^d assuming the mo.-t fantas- 

 tic appearances ; but these give no sure index of the time of their 

 deposition, but rather reveal the chemical processes by which the 

 mass of calcareous sand has become gradually cemented and 

 indurated. There does not appear to be any distinct evidences in 

 any part of the islands of volcanic action or of violent disturbances 

 of nature. All that can be said is, that there may at one time 

 have been a subsidence of the land and a considerable denudation 

 and erosion of its rocks, with perhaps a subsequent elevation to 

 some extent. Laud-shells of the genus Helix are found embedded 

 in the rock now covered by the sea at high water, and there are 

 appearances of sea beaches considerably above the present rise of 

 the tide ; but these movements have apparently been eflected 



