34 THE BERMUDA ISLANDS. 



they could only have been placed there through the normal 

 manner of oceanic deposition. It is true that in by far the 

 greater number of cases the rock that can be identified as of 

 beach formation contains, when remains are present at all, 

 only the relicts of marine organisms, and that the drift-rock 

 above or back of it contains only the parts of land mollusks. 

 But Prof Rice justlj^ remarks that the remains of land organ- 

 isms can be readily washed or drifted into the sea, and there 

 combined with the organisms that are subsequently to enter 

 into the formation of a beach-rock. A mixed faunal element 

 would thus be introduced. But much the same kind of inter- 

 mixture may take place in the land-deposits through the 

 washing or sweeping on high of marine organisms, or their 

 fragments, especially during periods of high storm. Prof. 

 Rice recognizes the possibility of such intermixture, but he at- 

 tributes it all to the action of the wind. It is claimed that 

 only small or light fragments can be swept up by it, and that 

 necessarily only these can be found, under ordinary condi- 

 tions, drifted into the rock. A fragment of the shell of 

 Spondylus weighing 1.8 grammes, a valve of Chama, in- 

 crusted with tubes of serpula, weighing 2.7 grammes, and a 

 fragment of Mycedium, weighing 8.3 grammes, were found 

 by that investigator in the sand-drifts of Tucker's Town, and 

 these weights or masses are given as values of the carrying 

 power of the wind. This, it appears to me, is doing scant jus- 

 tice to the assistance which the wind receives from the sea. 

 Under ordinary conditions the action of the sea may be 

 confined almost wholly to the line of beach, but it certainly 

 is otherwise during storms. At such times there can be no 

 question that much in the way of organic remains is thrown 

 far within the domain of the drift-rock. The hurling of 

 pebbles and stones along exposed coast-lines is suflicient evi- 

 dence of the capabilities in this direction. We were given 

 graphic accounts of the violence of the waters under excep- 

 tional conditions of storm, and were shown, in the house of 

 the Misses Peniston, at Peniston's, a position reached by 



