49 ISLES OF SUMMER. 
ried, but they acquire a flinty hardness of surface, and assume 
a subdued and darker shade (an ashen gray) when exposed to 
the sun and air. 
The Bermuda Islands are closely allied to the Bahamas, having 
the same formation and being surrounded by coral reefs. They 
are situated in the same latitude with Charleston, 8. C., and are 
seven hundred and eighty miles distant from Cape Hatteras, and 
seven hundred miles south-east of New York. Science has dis- 
covered, and historical records have furnished most reliable evi- 
dence, that this group of coral islands, since their first discovery 
in the early part of the sixteenth century, have been in a state 
of subsidence, so that they are now far less extensive than they 
were between three hundred and four hundred years ago. Prof. 
Dana says: ‘‘ Twenty miles to the south-west by west from the 
Bermudas there are two submerged banks, twenty to forty-seven 
fathoms under water, showing that the Bermudas are not com- 
pletely alone, and demonstrating that they cover a summit in a 
range of heights ; and it may have been a long range.” 
