arbonate
of lime. From the roof innumerable stalactites, perfectly white, often
several yards long and coming down to the delicacy of knitting-needles,
hung in clusters; and wherever there was any continuous crack in the
roof or wall, a graceful, soft-looking curtain of white stalactite
fell, and often ended, much to our surprise. Deep in the water
Stalagmites also rose up in pinnacles and fringes through the water,
which was so exquisitely still and clear that it was something
difficult to tell where the solid marble tracery ended, and its
reflected image began. In this cave, which is a considerable distance
from the sea, there is a slight change of level with the tide
sufficient to keep the water perfectly pure. The mouth of the cave is
overgrown with foliage, and every tree is draped and festooned with
the fragrant _Jasminum gracile_, mingled not unfrequently with the
"poison ivy" (_Rhus toxicodendron_). The Bermudians, especially the
dark people, have a most exaggerated horror of this bush. They imagine
that if one touch it or rub against it he becomes feverish, and is
covered with an eruption. This is no doubt entirely mythical. The
plant is very poisonous, but the perfume of the flower is rather
agreeable, and we constantly plucked and smelt it without its
producing any unpleasant effect. The tide was with us when we regained
the Flats Bridge, and the galley shot down the rapid like an arrow,
the beds of scarlet sponges and the great lazy trepangs showing
perfectly clearly on the bottom at a fathom depth.

[Illustration: FIG. 1. CALCAREOUS CONCRETION SIMULATING A FOSSIL
PALM-STEM, BOAZ ISLAND, BERMUDAS.]

Every here and there throughout the islands there are groups of bodies
of very peculiar form projecting from the surface of the limestone
where it has been weathered. These have usually been regarded as
fossil palmetto stumps, the roots of trees which have been overwhelmed
with sand and whose organic matter has been entirely removed and
replaced by carbonate of lime. Fig. 1 represents one of the most
characteristic of these from a group on the side of the road in Boaz
Island. It is a cylinder a foot in diameter and six inches or so high;
the upper surface forms a shallow depression an inch deep surrounded
by a raised border; the bottom of the cup is even, and pitted over
with small depressions like the marks of rain-drops on sand; the walls
of the cylinder seem to end a few inches below the surface of the
lime