stone in a rounded boss, and all over this there are round
markings or little cylindrical projections like the origins of
rootlets. The object certainly appears to agree even in every detail
with a fossil palm-root, and as the palmetto is abundant on the
islands and is constantly liable to be destroyed by and ultimately
enveloped in a mass of moving sand, it seemed almost unreasonable to
question its being one. Still something about the look of these things
made me doubt, with General Nelson, whether they were fossil palms, or
indeed whether they were of organic origin at all; and after carefully
examining and pondering over several groups of them, at Boaz Island,
on the shore at Mount Langton, and elsewhere, I finally came to the
conclusion that they were not fossils, but something totally
different.

[Illustration: FIG. 2. CALCAREOUS CONCRETION IN AEOLIAN LIMESTONE,
BERMUDAS.]

[Illustration: FIG. 3. CALCAREOUS CONCRETION IN AEOLIAN LIMESTONE,
BERMUDAS.]

[Illustration: FIG. 4. CALCAREOUS CONCRETION, BERMUDAS.]

[Illustration: FIG. 5. CALCAREOUS CONCRETION IN AEOLIAN LIMESTONE,
BERMUDAS.]

The form given in Fig. 1 is the most characteristic, and probably by
far the most common; but very frequently one of a group of these, one
which is evidently essentially the same as the rest and formed in the
same way, has an oval or an irregular shape (Figs. 2, 3, and 4). In
these we have the same raised border, the same scars on the outside,
the same origins of root-like fibres, and the same pitting of the
bottom of the shallow cup; but their form precludes the possibility of
their being tree-roots. In some cases (Fig. 5), a group of so-called
"palm-stems" is inclosed in a space surrounded by a ridge, and on
examining it closely this outer ridge is found to show the same
leaf-scars and traces of rootlets as the "palm-stems" themselves. In
some cases very irregular honey-combed figures are produced which the
examination of a long series of intermediate forms shows to belong to
the same category (Fig. 6).

[Illustration: FIG. 6. CONCRETIONS IN AEOLIAN ROCKS, BERMUDAS.]

In the caves in the limestone, owing to a thread of water having found
its way in a particular direction through the porous stone of the
roof, a drop falls age after age on one spot on the cave-floor,
accurately directed by the stalactite which it is all the time
creating. The water contains a certain proportion of carbonate of
lime, which is deposited as s