BERMUDA ISLANDS. 185 



Breaker Channel), / (the Channels affording the nearest 

 routes to Murray Anchorage and St. George's Harbour), g 

 (Channel by St. David's Head, shallow), and // (Hog-fish cut). 

 The reef-grounds, inside, are encumbered with countless clumps 

 of corals and coral-heads, one to four fathoms under water with 

 intervals between of five to ten fathoms ; some large tracts are 

 without corals, and these have a nearly uniform depth of seven 

 or eight fathoms. To a vessel entering, the positions of the 

 coral clumps are made known, by the brownish or discoloured 

 water above them. The bottom, over large areas, is a 

 calcareous clay or mud ; that of Murray Anchorage, a fine 

 chalky clay. 



The wind for three-fourths of the year is from the south-east 

 or south-west, and this may in part account for the south-east 

 side of the atoll being highest. But this feature is probably 

 owing much to the configuration of the land upon which the 

 coral reefs were built up. The reefs along the south-east and 

 south sides are nan-ow, not over a fourth of a mile wide, and 

 the waters abruptly deep ; and consequently we may conclude 

 that this south-eastern side of the original iskmd was bold and 

 high, while off to the no-rth the surface was relatively low 

 and flat. 



Twenty miles south-west-by-west from the Bermudas there 

 are two submerged banks or shoals, both reported as having a 

 " corally and rocky bottom;" one has 22 to 40 fathoms over it, 

 and the other 3,3 to 47 fathoms. Dredging on these banks 

 might make some interesting disclosures. 



The following observations bearing on the question as to the 

 former extent of the Bermudas group are from a paper by 

 Mr. S. Matthew Jones, in Nature^ August 1872 : — 



" As my late visit to the Bermudas has placed me in 

 possession of facts relating to their original aspect of a some- 

 what conclusive nature, I deem it advisable to communicate 

 such in a brief form, instead of awaiting the time requisite for 

 the preparation of a more elaborate paper on the subject. On 

 previous occasions I have always regretted my inability, from 

 lack of time, to look more closely into their geological char- 



