NATURAL HISTORY OF THE BERMUDAS. 379 



My knowledge of chemistry does not justify me com- 

 menting on Dr. Bernay's analysis. I will, therefore, 

 merely remark that I find it difficult to understand how a 

 deposit of earth which is found imbedded in a formation of 

 calcarious sand, and is derived either from that formation 

 or from the surrounding ocean, can be made to yield oxide 

 of iron as a constituent. Perhaps the analytical chemist, 

 in this instance, has allowed his mind to be influenced by 

 the ferruginous colour of the earth, and has taken for 

 granted that it was due to the presence of iron. If not, 

 how is it possible to account for the unstained whiteness 

 of the shell- deposit immediately below this layer of earth ? 



Taking all these circumstances into consideration, I 

 cannot think I am far wrong in thus pointing to the 

 probable origin of the red earth of the Bermudas. 



-Dr. G. H. Hartwig, in " The Sea and its Living 

 Wonders," published in i860, in describing the beds of 

 guano which cover the small Chincha Islands to the depth 

 of fifty or sixty feet, states that the " upper strata are of a 

 greyish-brown colour, which lower down becomes darker ; 

 and in the inferior strata the colour is a rusty red, as if 

 tinged by oxide of iron. The guano becomes progressively 

 more and more solid from the surface downwards, a 

 circumstance naturally accounted for by the gradual deposit 

 of the strata, and the increasing superincumbent weight." 



Colonel Nelson, of the Royal Engineers, when cutting 

 the escarp of the north bastion at Ireland Island, came 

 across a cavern which contained numbers of a delicate 

 Halix, and a " heap of the dry red earth " of the islands; 

 since determined by him to be mainly of animal origin. 

 In this earth were quantities of birds' bones. 



It is clearly evident that the " heap of dry red earth " 

 found by Colonel Nelson in this cavern, above the level of 

 the sea, would not have been there deposited by the sur- 



