Sharp County record., 1885-06-04
eERMUDA'S PECULIARITIES.
Neither Soil Nor Water, Animals Nor
Birds, Only Coral.

Birds, Only Coral.
In no other part of the world, think,
did nature show such supreme niggard-
illness as here. She gave the Bermudas
neither soil nor water, neither animal
nor bird, neither fruit, vegetable nor
flower. She simply conferred the most
delightful weather under the canopy,
and then stood off and said: "Such
weather as that is bountiful outfit, if
you don't get another thing" So it
has proved. To the prize weather all
other things have been added by Wis
itors. The only wild animal known
here are the rat and the mouse, brought
by vessels; the casual and oleaginous
whale, and the bat, that has blown
across the Atlantic by accident. There
is no game whatever, and never has
been. Of birds, the splendid cardinal
of the tropics is here. The blue robin
of New England is here, piping piping as IS
bravely as ever. The cat-bird has put
i'm an appearance, and so has that even
greater nuisance, the English sparrow,
the pirate of the winged world Two
Spanish birds, the "chick of the vii
lage' and the pretty ground dove,
move quietly about. And that is all
Not native bird among them.
| have said that nature gave Bermuda
no soil. IgnatiuS Donnelly thinks that
these islands and the Azores are the re-
mains of Plato's tabled continent-the
last jot remaining above the sea after
the great cataclysm of one hundred
thousand years ago buried the rest OF
the continent with its splendid civiliza-
Itions forever. In that case, should
suppose there would be some real soil,
some rocks, some drift, some sand, some
clay. some alluvium, some vegetable
mold There is very little of the last
and not bit of any of the others on
these islands. There is not clay enough
for pipe, or sand enough for sand
glass, or stone big or little nearer than
the coast of Georgia. There is nothing
here but ground coral reefs, carbonate
of lime, digeSted and deposited by that
mucilaginous and shapeleSs creature
called the coral ''insect." This island
lis as white as so much chalk, and about
las barren. Water soaks into it like
sponge, and five minutes after a sharp
Shower one can 90 out walking and find
neither mud nor moisture anywhere.
On some lowlands this comminuted
coral, with the mixture OF elements it
has taken up, is not as hard as else
where; and here it is occasionally culti-
waited by the admixture with the soil of
q large quantity of fertilizers from Amer
lea. 1t can absorb unlimited cargoeS
of these stimulants without having its
life much stirred by them. Tickle
this coral reef with a hoe ever so Wig
orously, it never laughs with a
harvest; and after you have poured
into it oceans of poudrette and dOsed
it with loan and bound poultices
OF warm ground upon its stomach, it
only smiles faint and ghastly smile.
But, under these circumstances, pOta-
toes, onions, tomatoes and lily bulbs
are planted, and, if they can clasp root-
lets around anything softer than a cast
iron stove lid, they grow. Some things
grow in warm climate without much
encouragement. saw this week a
tamarind tree as large as a good sized
New England elm, that had been torn
up by hurricane long ago, and stood
on its very top, its roots pointing
toward the sky. The branches that
stuck into the ground put forth roots
and gave the wreck new anchorage,
while the upthrown roots reverted and
set forth new limbs, and the dense
mass of foliage now shades the ground,
and invites the still fruitful giant tc
forget its disaster.
There is no fresh water on the island
except what comes direct from the
clouds. The sky is the cistern of Ber-
muda. The houses are all built of the
coral that is quarried in beautiful white
cubes from the ground anywhere,
seeming fit for the sculptor's chisel;
then every house is rooted with slant
roof of the same and furnished with
abundant tanks In these the rain is
gathered; and the tanks are so very
clean, and the roof is so very white and
the air so very free from dust that the
water is the purest in the world-cold
and pellucid as if drawn from the
choicest mountain spring. | never saw
such delicious water anywhere. Nature
knew what she was about when she
omitted the Burmudian springs.
II oTf