376 NATURAL HISTORY OF THE BERMUDAS. 



If such were really the case, the imbedded surface soil 

 would be apparent in the crumbling cliffs around their 

 shores— if not in stone quarries and the deeper road 

 cuttings, like that which forms the approach to Govern- 

 ment House at Mount Langton. Much as I have wan- 

 dered in those localities, I have seen no indications of the 

 kind, beyond what are already mentioned. 



If the imbedded surface soil does exist through the 

 length and breadth of the islands, it will be evident that 

 a long interregnum of the shell-drifting process must have 

 taken place, in order to permit the detritus of rocks and 

 decaying trees, to form that area of soil, and to allow, 

 *' after ages had passed," of the " first feathered songster 

 being wafted over the broad waters of the Atlantic, to 

 pour his wild music through the wooded glades of the 

 land." I will say nothing of the subsequent accumulation 

 of drift and the formation of the existing surface, although 

 they represent a very considerable portion of time. 



The only theory suggested to my mind by a contempla- 

 tion on this subject is — that the stratum of red earth in 

 question can be nothing more than the remains of an 

 ancient bed of guano, the accumulation of myriads of sea- 

 birds, which in past ages reared their young in certain parts 

 of the Bermudas, prior to the introduction or the growth 

 of trees. This guano is now decomposed by" time and the 

 filtration of rain water. A specimen of the red earth taken 

 by myself from the vein in Mrs. Kennedy's field, was pre- 

 sented to Mr. John Mathew Jones, author of "The 

 Naturalist in Bermuda," who caused the same to be 

 analysed, and to that analysis I am indebted for the further 

 confirmation of my theory, for on comparing the component 

 parts of this earth with those of West Indian guanos, as 

 given in the printed analysis of Mr. J. C. Nesbit, principal 

 of the Kensington Chemical and Agricultural College, the 



