unning waters, were plainly
discernible in many parts of the island, and more particularly in the
vicinity of this deposit of chalk and granite, it seemed highly probable
that it had been formed by two streams of the tide, which, when the
island was yet beneath the surface of the sea, having swept round a large
lump of rocks, then met and formed an eddy, where every substance would
fall to the bottom. The lump of rocks is now a rocky knoll, which runs
tapering from the opposite side of the island toward the chalk. On each
side of it is a gap, through which the two streams appear to have passed.

The vegetation on the island seems brown and starved. It consists of a
few stunted trees; several patches of brush, close set and almost
impenetrable; large tufts of sour and wiry grass, and abundance of low
saltish plants, chiefly of the creeping kind.

A small spot upon the east end of the island presented a phenomenon which
seemed not easily explicable by any known laws of that class of natural
history to which it alone was referable.

Amidst a patch of naked sand, upon one of the highest parts of the
island, at not less than 100 feet above the level of the sea, within the
limits of a few hundred yards square, were lying scattered about a number
of short broken branches of old dead trees, of from one to three inches
in diameter, and seemingly of a kind similar to the large brush wood.
Amid these broken branches were seen sticking up several white stony
stumps, of sizes ranging between the above diameters, and in height from
a foot to a foot and a half. Their peculiar form, together with a number
of prongs of their own quality, projecting in different directions from
around their base, and entering the ground in the manner of roots,
presented themselves to the mind of an observer, with a striking
resemblance to the stumps and roots of small trees. These were extremely
brittle, the slightest blow with a stick, or with each other, being
sufficient to break them short off; and when taken into the hand, many of
them broke to pieces with their own weight.

On being broken transversely, it was immediately seen that the internal
part was divided into interior or central, exterior or cortical. The
exterior part, which in different specimens occupied various proportions
of the whole, resembled a fine white and soft grit-stone; but acids being
applied, showed it to be combined with a considerable portion of
calcareous matter. The int