Lieut. Nelson on the Geology of the Bermudas. 113 



I have never seen these creatures alive, nor have I ever heard of their having been seen in that 

 state; but still they were found with a smaller Helix deep in the compact rock at e, fig. 5. 

 This Helix, which is the common, living snail of the island, I obtained in the hardest stone, 

 and in the loosest sand ; sometimes lined with druses of carbonate of lime, sometimes filled with 

 a solid cast, at other times slightly cemented together, and frequently retaining some colour ; in 

 which condition they are generally found, as before mentioned, in every part of the colony. 



Returning to the cavern at the North Bastion (fig. 8,). In the heap of red earth, which in this 

 instance only had rather an unctuous feel, mixed with the large Helix, were found quantities 

 of birds' bones. From the best accounts, the caves at Ireland were frequented until lately by a 

 sea bird, whose local name, derived from its peculiar cry, is Pim-li-co. In hazy weather, or 

 at night, this sound was always a warning for vessels from the West Indies to put about, and 

 avoid the perilous south-west bar and reefs ; but since the establishment of the dockyard at 

 Ireland, these birds have almost left the Bermudas. 



Whilst excavating a ditch near the cavern S shown in fig. 5, p. 108, a small hole was discovered 

 in a rather hard rock, composed of comminuted fragments, with the interstices not filled up ; it 

 was about twenty feet above the sea, thirty yards from it, and fifteen feet from the top of the hill, 

 but without any apparent connection with the surface. In this hole were found an eggshell and 

 many fragments of bones, similar to the preceding, but they were all, as well as the egg, coated 

 with carbonate of lime*. 



Ireland is however by no means the exclusive mine for these fossils. Bones, apparently those 

 of birds, have been found in the limestone on the coast of Harrington Sound by Mr. Hill, to 

 whom I am indebted for the information. He obtained specimens fifty feet from the water, 

 twenty feet above it, and four feet under the surface. Three eggs were found close to the bones, 

 and similarly imbedded. Another egg was found in a block of limestone near Hamilton. 



A gold knee buckle and a canister shot were dug up in a coarse limestone, whilst excavating the 

 foundations for one part of the North Bastion, across the bottom of the cavern : they were ac- 

 companied by Scutella Quinqtceforis, containing crystallized carbonate of lime as before, and 

 Agaricia undata. This rock, a genuine coral rag, is three or four feet thick, and is evidently in a 

 progressive state of consolidation. As it was under water, and as we constantly find stalagmite 

 in the caverns similarly situated, it seems that evaporation, however conducive to the com- 

 pactness of strata, and the depositing lime once held in solution, is by no means a necessary 

 requisite. 



Turtle bones were also procured from the North Bastion coral rag, and from the sands at Elbow 

 Bay, The turtles seem, like the poor bird before mentioned, to have been buried while de- 

 positing its eggs, as the two skeletons when first discovered were entire and undisturbed. Their 

 dimensions were nine feet in length, and seven in breadth, as I was informed by an eye-witness. 



These bones, as well as those of birds from the North Bastion, Harrington Sound, and the 

 ditch near h, fig. 5, all adhere strongly to the tongue ; hence no further reliance can be placed on 

 this circumstance as a criterion of age. Nor can crystallization or compactness be considered 

 unequivocal testimony, in arriving at conclusions respecting the age of a rock. 



In the North Bastion, in the interior crevices of the coral rock, were many fine specimens of 

 Cypraea and Bulla, but with abraded surfaces. 



* It is the known habit of many sea birds, particularly the tropic bird, or ' Boatswain,' so 

 numerous at Bermuda, to make their nests in hollows of the cliffs ; and it would seem as if the 

 animal had been immured during the period of incubation, by some fresh deposit of sand which 

 had afterwards hardened into the walls of its prison house. 



VOL. V. SECOND SERIES. Q 



