THE BERMUDA ISLANDS have been carefully described by Lieutenant Nelson, in an excellent Memoir in the “Geological Transactions” (volume v., part i., page 103). In the form of the bank or reef, on one side of which the islands stand, there is a close general resemblance to an atoll; but in the following respects there is a considerable difference,—first, in the margin of the reef not forming (as I have been informed by Mr. Chaffers, R.N.) a flat, solid surface, laid bare at low water, and regularly bounding the internal space of shallow water or lagoon; secondly, in the border of gradually shoaling water, nearly a mile and a half in width, which surrounds the entire outside of the reef (as is laid down in Captain Hurd’s chart); and thirdly, in the size, height, and extraordinary form of the islands, which present little resemblance to the long, narrow, simple islets, seldom exceeding half a mile in breadth, which surmount the annular reefs of almost all the atolls in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. Moreover, there are evident proofs (Nelson, Ibid., page 118), that islands similar to the existing ones, formerly extended over other parts of the reef. It would, I believe, be difficult to find a true atoll with land exceeding thirty feet in height; whereas, Mr. Nelson estimates the highest point of the Bermuda Islands to be 260 feet; if, however, Mr. Nelson’s view, that the whole of the land consists of sand drifted by the winds, and agglutinated together, were proved correct, this difference would be immaterial; but, from his own account (page 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 two hundred 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. INDEX. The names not in capitals are all names of places, and refer exclusively to the Appendix: in well-defined archipelagoes, or groups of islands, the name of each separate island is not given. ABROLHOS, Brazil, coated by corals. Abrolhos (Australia). ABSENCE of coral-reefs from certain coasts. Acaba, gulf of. Admiralty group. AFRICA, east coast, fringing-reef of. Madreporitic rock of. Africa, east coast.