BERMUDA ISLANDS. 187 



Kindness of his Excellency Major-General Lefroy, C.B., F.R.S., 

 the present Governor, been placed in possession of still more 

 satisfactory information. During the past two years extensive 

 submarine blastings have taken place inside an artificial harbour 

 situated at the western extremity of the islands, for the purpose 

 of forming a bed of sufficient depth for the reception of the 

 ' Great Bermuda Dock,' which attracted so much attention off 

 Woolwich when launched some three or four years ago. The 

 excavations extended to a depth of fifty-two feet below low-water 

 mark. At forty-six feet occurred a layer of red earth two feet 

 in thickness, containing remains of cedar trees, which layer 

 rested upon a bed of compact calcareous sandstone. Here we 

 have the first satisfactory evidence of the submergence of an 

 extensive deposit of soil once upon the surface, and that 

 to the depth of forty-eight feet below the present low-water 

 level,- which consequently grants an equal elevation above it 

 in former times. Now, on carefully surveying the Bermuda 

 chart, we find that an elevation of forty-eight feet will bring 

 the whole space which intervenes between the present land 

 and the barrier reef, now covered with water, above the water 

 level. This attained, what more is required to prove the 

 former extent of the island group before the present submer- 

 gence to the present barrier reef? But having clearly ascer- 

 tained beyond doubt that the Bermudas were once forty-eight 

 feet higher than at present, will any one be bold enough to 

 deny them a greater elevation ? I have reason to believe that 

 they once extended in a south-westerly direction — not only out 

 to the reef, but to a greater distance. There are some rocky 

 ledges about twenty to twenty-five miles from land in that 

 direction, known as ' The Flatts,' lying in about thirty-five to 

 forty fathoms water ; and, singularly enough, in the very oldest 

 maps of the Atlantic, copies of which I have consulted in the 

 British Museum, ' The False Bermudas ' are put down about 

 this position. Is it unreasonable to suppose that a low-lying 

 group of islets did actually exist here in former times ? Again, 

 in Smith's ' History of Virginia,' which gives an excellent 

 account of the islands in the early part of the seventeenth 



