Leaving out the medium-sized ones, there remains but an agglomeration of islets and reefs scattered over an area of twelve square leagues.
Although the climate of Bermuda is very healthy, very salubrious, the isles are nevertheless frightfully beaten by the heavy winter tempests of the Atlantic, and their approach by navigators presents certain difficulties.
What the archipelago especially lacks are rivers and rios.

However, as abundant rains fall frequently, this drawback is got over by the inhabitants, who treasure up the heaven-sent water for household and agricultural purposes.

This has necessitated the construction of vast cisterns which the downfalls keep filled.

These works of engineering skill justly merit the admiration they receive and do honor to the genius of man.
It was in connection with the setting up of these cisterns that I made the trip, as well as out of curiosity to inspect the fine works.
I obtained from the company of which I was the engineer in New Jersey a vacation of several weeks, and embarked at New York for the Bermudas.
While I was staying on Hamilton Island, in the vast port of Southampton, an event occurred of great interest to geologists.
One day a whole flotilla of fishers, men, women and children, entered Southampton Harbor.

For fifty years these families had lived on the east coast of Back Cup, where they had erected log-cabins and houses of stone.