234 bulletin: museum of comparative zoology. 



their way from the West Indies in the truck of the Gulf Stream, or 

 perhaps have been derived from the corals forming the proto-Bermudian 

 reefs, which in their turn were introduced from the West Indies through 

 the same agency. 



It seems probable that the cedars dredged up in the excavations for 

 the channel in St. George Harbor were floated into the basin from the 

 adjoining hillsides ; but in the case of the red earth coming from the 

 excavation in Ireland Island, the site of the present dockyard was prob- 

 ably a banana hole, which during the subsidence sank to its present 

 level, say hfty feet or so below low-water mark. 



The conditions of growth of the corals in the sounds of the Bermudas 

 do not seem to me to have any bearing on the growth of corals in the 

 lagoon of an atoll. The lagoon of an atoll swept by the currents, with 

 its rim pounded upon by the surf, and the Bermudian Sound, with its 

 comparatively quiet expanse of water formed imder such diff'erent condi- 

 tions, do not seem to have many features in common. 



There are near Harrington Sound, between it and Castle Harbor, 

 three small sounds in the process of formation, which present all the 

 characteristics of the larger sounds, only on a most diminutive scale in 

 proportion to the range of the sea they enclose. The two most interest- 

 ing are one to the east of Harrington House, and one called Webb's 

 Pond, on the road to St. George, after passing the Flats. The latter is 

 an irre^ ilarly pear-shaped, miniature sound, about 200 by 180 feet, and 

 perliaps 200 feet from the north shore. At its southern extremity there 

 are low crumbling cliff's. The depth is said to be fourteen feet. Both 

 of them aie merely sinks close to the sea, but only connected with it 

 under ground, and perhaps filled by pei'colation of the sea through the 

 seolian rock. The tide rises and falls in both. 



Spittle Pond, on the south shore, is a brackish sink surrounded by 

 grassy shores, which barely reaches high water-mark. Between Tuckers- 

 town and Newton Bay there are also a couple of brackish ponds, the 

 shores of which are protected by mangroves. 



While the sounds undoubtedly indicate subsidence, they are not 

 lagoons surrounded by corals, such as we find in atolls, and should not 

 be compared to them. They are sinks or low tracts, which have become 

 connected with the outer waters into which corals have found their way. 

 Such sinks we find ready to be changed to sounds or pseudo lagoons at 

 many points of the Bermudas ; as, for instance, along the South Shore 

 road from about Walker Bay nearly to Hungry Bay, there are a series of 

 low valleys about at the sea level, and separated from the sea by a ridge 



