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I.—Some Notes on the Geology of the Bermuda Islands

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 May 2009

R. Ashington Bullen
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Extract

(4) Recent Æolian Sands.—On the south shore the sand has made or is making some encroachments on the land, in others on the sea. The ‘live’ sand-dunes are principally to be found at Tuckerstown, but there are some movements at Elbow (or Middleton) Bay and at Warwick Long Bay. The shell-sand is mostly made up of the broken shells of various marine species, some few being entire, with which are mingled the broken tubes of serpulæ, fragments of nullipores and corallines, and the red shells of a Vermetus, viz. Teganodus (Siliquaria) ruber, Schum. This latter is so plentiful as to give a distinctly red appearance to the sand of some beaches.

Type
Original Articles
Information
Geological Magazine , Volume 8 , Issue 10 , October 1911 , pp. 433 - 442
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1911

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References

page 433 note 1 Verrill, , “The Bermuda Islands: Geology”: Trans. Conn. Acad. Arts Sci., vol. xii, p. 75.Google Scholar

page 434 note 1 Voyage of the “Challenger”, vol. i, p. 310Google Scholar, figs. 74–6.

page 434 note 2 Lefroy, , Botany of Bermuda, 1874.Google Scholar

page 434 note 3 Agassiz, , A Visit to the Bermudas in 1894, pp. 237, 243.Google Scholar

page 434 note 4 Through the kindness of Miss Aimée Kempe, of Warwick parish.

page 435 note 1 Agassiz, , A Visit to the Bermudas in 1894, pp. 264–7, figs. 1–7Google Scholar. Also Nelson, , op. cit., p. 116, figs. 11–13.Google Scholar

page 435 note 2 Agassiz, , op. cit., p. 264.Google Scholar

page 436 note 1 Formerly in Dr. Henry Woodward's cabinet.

page 438 note 1 The second alternative seems to me to be the most feasible. It is difficult to conceive such a hard rock being formed under salt water from such materials. Such crystallization would more likely take place on land elevated above the sea-level, where crystallization could go on at the base of guano beds. Solid rock is not forming under the sea at the present day. Wherever the sea bottom is dredged the material is unconsolidated at all depths from 1 to 10 feet, and is mostly an impalpable mud containing numerous shells quite loose in the dredged material. (Verrill, , op. cit., pp. 138 seqq.)Google Scholar

page 438 note 2 Verrill, , op. cit., p. 258Google Scholar, quoting a letter dated 1614, written by the Rev. Lewis Hughes. “Here is also plenty of sea-foules, at one time of the yeare, as about the middle of October, birds which we call Cahouse and Pimlicoes come in. The Cahouse continue til the beginning of June in great abundance, they are bigger bodied than a Pigeon and of a very good and firm flesh. They are taken with ease if one do but sit downe in a darke night and make a noise, there will more come to him than he will be able to kill: some have told me that they have taken twelve or fourteen dozen in an hower.” (The names are onomatopœic, from the cries of the birds. The pimlico has been identified as the ‘dusky’ or Audubon's shearwater; vide antea.)

page 439 note 1 Verrill, , “The Bermuda Islands: Geology”: Trans. Conn. Acad. Arts Sci., vol. xii, p. 85, note.Google Scholar

page 440 note 1 Thomson, Wyville (Atlantic, vol. i, p. 99)Google Scholar gives the depths at which such grey mud and ooze occur near the Bermudas: Station xxxi, S. 2,475 fathoms; Station xxxii, S. 2,250 f.; Station xxxiv, N. 1,375 f.; Station xxxvii, E. 2,650 f.; Station lv, N. 2,500 f.; Station lviii, E. 1,500 f. The respective distances from Bermuda of the first five are 53, 26, 18, 43, and 66 miles respectively. The distances are prohibitive of the second explanation, even if the enormous depths did not forbid.

page 441 note 1 Agassiz, , A Visit to the Bermudas in 1894, p. 269, pl. xxix.Google Scholar

page 442 note 1 Atlantic, vol. i, p. 330.Google Scholar