Flora Of Bermuda

Excerpt from Flora of Bermuda The islands forming Bermuda, or the Bermudas, are an isolated group in the Atlantic Ocean, in north latitude 32 14" to 32 23"(Castle Island is 32 20"), and in west longitude 64 38" to 64 52" (Castle Island is almost exactly 64 40" ). The nearest land is Cape Hatteras on the coast of North Carolina, distant about 568 nautical miles; the distance to Halifax is about 736 nautical miles, to Sandy Hook 666 nautical miles, to Charleston about 700 nautical miles, and to Abaco, the nearest West Indian island of the Bahama archipelago, about 700 miles to the southwest, to St. Thomas about 800 miles to the southeast. The land area of Bermuda is a little over nineteen square land miles, or approximately one-fourth the size of Staten Island, New York, or about one-seventh the size of the Isle of Wight. There is a main island containing perhaps three-quarters of the entire area, five islands each half a square mile in area or more, some sixty little islands or cays, and many more rocks or ledges projecting above the water. The islands are all close together. The Bermuda banks or shoals, stretching northward and westward from the islands, are of much greater area than the present land. The general outline of the archipelago is irregularly oblong, more accurately fishhook-shaped, its longer axis lying northeast and southwest, with a length of about fifteen land miles and a width near the middle (across Pembroke and Paget) of about three land miles, but across the tip of the fishhook from Ireland Island to the south shores of Warwick the distance is about five land miles; the average width is somewhat less than one and a half land miles. The rocks of Bermuda are wholly aeolian limestone, of recent geologic age, and the soil has been entirely derived from the weathering and disintegration of this limestone. The topography is hilly, with local broad valleys occupied by fresh water or brackish marshes, salt water bays and lagoons. The highest points above the sea are about 250 feet elevation. Like many other portions of the earth, Bermuda has been subject to alternate uplifts and depressions: the last vertical movement has apparently been one of depression; the land area was therefore probably greater formerly than it is now; possibly the area now occupied by the banks to the north and west of the islands was land during some previous geologic period. These islands and banks are the top of an isolated mountain system or plateau, separated from all others by the abysses of the ocean, and there is no evidence which justifies any assumption that it was ever connected with other regions by land. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Covering the entire range of marine species, from plankton to marine mammals, here is the first field guide devoted to a subtropical marine ecosystem, the Bermuda coastal waters. With 2,600 black and white illustrations, 2l2 color photographs, and over 900 references.

Proceedings of the Twelfth International Seaweed Symposium, held in São Paulo, Brazil, July 27-August, 1986.