22 THE GEOLOGY OF BERMUDA. 



times is from John Smith's History of Virginia,* In an enumeration 

 of the birds found in Bermuda occurs the expression: "Very many 

 crows, which since this plantation are killed, the rest fled or seldom 

 seen, except in the most uninhabited places, from whence they are 

 observed to take their flight about sunset, directing their course 

 towards the north-west, which makes many conjecture there are some 

 more islands not far oft" that way." t The statement is too indefinite to> 

 justify any very positive conclusions. If we accept it as indicating the' 

 existence of some dry land in the position of the north reef, it may per- 

 haps be sufiiciently accounted for by the supposition already suggested:. 

 namely, that there may have been a number of small islets which have 

 since been degraded to the water-level by the erosion of the waves.. 

 Certainly the statement does not justify a belief in the recent subsidence 

 of the islands, in opposition to the evidence now to be presented. 



The earliest descriptions of Bermuda which are sufiiciently accurate 

 and detailed to admit of intelligent comparison with the present condi- 

 tion of the islands, date from the time of the shipwreck of Sir Thomas 

 Gates and Sir George Somers in 1C09. The following extracts from 

 these descriptions will show that at that time the size and form of the 

 islands and the depth of water within the reef were essentially the same 

 as at present. The statement of the depth of the water seems to me 

 perfectly conclusive against the theory of any considerable subsidence 

 within the last three centuries. 



The first of these extracts is from the narrative of William Strachy.ij: 

 " The Bermudas bee broken Hands, fine hundred of them in manner of 

 an Archipelagus (at least if you may call them all Hands that lie, how 

 little soeuer into the sea, and by themselues) of small compasse, some 

 larger yet then other, as time and the Sea hath wonne from them, and 

 eaten his passage through, and all now lying in the figure of a Crois- 

 sant, within the circuit of sixe or seuen leagues at the most, albeit at 

 first it is said of them that they were thirteene or fourteene leagues^ 

 and more in longitude as I have heard. For no greater distance is it 



* The General History of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles. By Capt.. 

 John Smith. London, 1624. The work is reprinted in A General Collection o€ 

 Voyages and Travels in all parts of the World. By John Piukerton. London,. 

 1808-'14. Vol. XIII., pp. l-25r}. 



t Pinkerton, op. cif., Vol. XIII., p. 173. 



t A true repertory of the Wracke, and redemption of Sir Thomas Gates Knight;: 

 upon, and from the Hands of the Bermudas: * * » written by William Strachy,, 

 Esquire.' The narrative is contained in Purchas, Part 4, ^p. 1734-'58. Copious ex- 

 tracts are given in Lofroy, o}}. cit., Vol. I., pp 22-54. 



