[CIIAP. I.
and Permudas is th at, while Permudas springs up,
an isolated peak, from a great depth, the Açores
seem to he simply the highest points of a great
platean-like elevation, Avhicli extends for upwards of
a thousand miles from Avest to east, and appears to
be continuous Avith a belt of shalloAv AA^ater stretclhng
to Iceland in the north, and connected probably Avitli
the ‘Dolphin P i s e ’ to the southward—a plateau
Avhich in fact divides the North Atlantic longitudinally
into tAVO great valleys, an eastern and a
Avestern. The three previous soundings, the iirst
three hundred and th irty miles from Eayal, had
already shoAvn th a t avc Avere passing over the gradual
ascent ; and this dredging, although not very fruitful
in results, gave indications, by the presence of some
comparatively shallow-water northern sjiecies, of a
northern extension of its conditions.
Although the tAAm remote little archipelagos out in
the Atlantic have many things in common, the first
impression of the Açores is singularly difterent from
that of Bermudas. Long before the Avhite cottages,
strasrodins: in broken lines almost O O O round the islands
on the top of the sea-cliff, or grouped in villages
round their little churches—AA'hite, quaintly edged
Avith black, like mourning envelopes—in the mouths
of richly-Avooded raA'ines, have become Ausible; the
eye has been dAvelling Avith pleasure on the hold
outline of the land, running up everywhere into magnificent
ridges and pinnacles, and has sometimes been
almost startled hy the sudden unveiling of a majestic
peak through a rift in the clouds far np in the sky.
As the islands draAV nearer, the hazy blues and
purples give place to vivid shades of green, and these.