264 APPENDIX. 



agglutinated together, were proved correct, this difference 

 would be immaterial; but, from his own account (p. 118), 

 there occur in one place, five or six layers of red earth, 

 interstratified with the ordinary calcareous rock, and 

 including stones too heavy for the wind to have moved, 

 without having at the same time utterly dispersed every 

 grain of the accompanying drifted matter. Mr. Nelson 

 attributes the origin of these several layers, with their 

 embedded stones, to as many violent catastrophes; but 

 further investigation in such cases has generally succeeded 

 in explaining phenomena of this kind by ordinary and 

 simpler means. Finally, I may remark, that these islands 

 have a considerable resemblance in shape to Barbuda in 

 the West Indies, and to Pemba on the eastern coast of 

 Africa, which latter island is about 200 feet in height, and 

 consists of coral-rock. I believe that the Bermuda Islands, 

 from being fringed by living reefs, ought to have been 

 coloured red ; but I have left them uncoloured, on account 

 of their general resemblance in external form to a lagoon- 

 island or atoll. 



