Bermuda lies 666 miles south of New York City and about 700 miles due east from Charleston, S. C., and 293 miles from the southern edge of the Gulf Stream, which, if the truth must be told, exercises no such influence on the climate of Bermuda as highly colored advertising circulars would have one believe. It is the great ocean, upon whose surface the islands make the most infinitesimal dot, that controls the climate of the Bermudas. The Gulf Stream, wonderful phenomenon that it is, is a sort of bug-a-boo to some who never have intelligently studied ocean meteorology. Travelers tell of the superheated atmosphere they encountered on crossing the Stream, and educators who should know better teach that the entire climate of Europe is markedly influenced by it. The fact is that there is no distortion whatever of the isothermal lines as they enter and leave the Gulf stream in any region north of Bermuda. (See Chart 14.) The climate of Bermuda and of Europe is controlled largely by the great Atlantic Ocean, not by this small river of warm water, which broadens out and loses its identity long before the coast of Europe is reached, and whose influence is soon dissipated in the vast expanse of ocean air. The ocean has a great circulating system, northward on the western and southward on its eastern side. This circulation pushes the isothermal lines northward on one side and southward on the other. The islands of Bermuda rise some 15,000 feet from the floor of the ocean, and project above the water to heights varying from 50 to 260 feet above sea level. Like jewels nestling upon the bosom of a sub-tropical ocean these islands, from one half to three miles wide, are strung along so close that one almost can hop over from one to the other. They lie in the form of a fish-hook; from the hole where the line of the fisherman would be tied to the point of the hook is about twenty-six miles. The topography is irregular and picturesque. On land there are caves and grottoes and subterranean lakes. January to May rose borders are abloom. In April the oleander is showing pink and crimson along every roadside, and the hedges hold these beautiful flowers for months; at Easter time lilies carpet the ground and perfume the air. Here morning glories have many forms and colors, which, with pendent bells, climb wide-spreading cedar trees, and wild passion flowers cover rocky cliffs.