Note III-7 — Chapter III · DISCOVERY OF DARIEN.
Reading edition
Called by the Venetians bissas, and by the Spaniards broma; a terrible pest to tropical navigators before the days of copper-bottoming. This, and another tropical marine worm, the Simnoria terebrans, brought hither by ships, play havoc with the wharf-piling of San Francisco and other west-coast harbors.