BERMUDAS. 
25 
Over the black mouth of one of these caves falls a mass of convolvulus, hanging down 
in festoons, and gathering below into a sea of green leaves and large violet flowers ; and as 
you look into the cave, the descending stalactites show through the darkness like teeth in 
the mouth of some gigantic monster. 
The last word reminds me of a capture, effected a few days after our arrival, of a large 
octopus—the sea-monster of Victor Hugo’s Travailleurs de la Mer. It was discovered in a 
fish-pond on Boaz Island. I did not see its arms fully extended, but its body alone measured 
about one foot, and specimens of less size have been known to span a length of ten feet. 
Pliny, in his Natural History, mentions an 
octopus, with arms thirty feet long, as hav¬ 
ing come on shore near Carteja, in the Strait 
of Gibraltar, to plunder a fish-pond, and a 
piece of which, weighing 700 pounds, had 
been preserved at Rome. There is a well- 
authenticated case of a sailor, belonging to a 
ship anchored off Ireland Island, who was 
caught in the arms of one of these monsters, 
and drowned before his comrades could 
release him. Another specimen, weighing 
upwards of a ton, was cast ashore a year or 
two ago on the south side of the island. 
The Bermudas offer to the geologist 
an excellent opportunity of studying a modus 
of rock formation, called by its discoverer, 
Lieutenant Nelson, who was stationed here 
in the early part of this century, the 
“ zEolian ” formation. The islands of Ber¬ 
mudas OCCUpy the Southern half of an Oval- gingham caves, Bermudas. 
shaped coral reef about twenty-four miles long and twelve miles broad, stretching from 
the south-west to the north-east. As already mentioned, this reef crowns the summit of 
a submerged area of elevation, gradually rising from a depth of about three miles. The 
slopes of this submarine mountain, as was shown by our soundings, are covered with a fine 
mud, chiefly consisting of the detritus of corals, shells, &c. The mud left upon the beach by 
the waves, and dried in the sun, is transformed into an extremely fine whitish sand, which 
even the gentlest breeze sets in motion and carries inland. Along the southern limits of 
the reef, especially in the south-east, this sand is seen to make its way through the openings 
left by the hills, and to accumulate to a great height, gradually covering up the groves, the 
cultivated ground, and even buildings—not unlike the slow progress of a glacier. Under the 
continuous action of the winds, the sand-hills are shifted from place to place, now occupying 
new ground, now adding their mass to previously-formed hills. How these sandy strata 
