90 A. E. Verrill—The Bermuda Islands; Geology. 
bilobed sound (a), farther east, toward the Mills Breaker cut (xiv), 
would probably be connected with the former sound by an extension 
of its southern limb in the form of a narrow, deep, and crooked 
channel, in which there is now 48 feet of water. This sound would 
be about as large as St. George’s Harbor. To the east of it would 
lie two smaller bodies of water, 10 to 34 feet deep. The larger of 
these (¢) would probably remain connected with Mills Breaker cut 
(xiv) by means of a narrow deep channel, and probably also with 
the sounds (a) and (e). A shallow sound of about 3 square miles 
(a), would exist north of St. George’s Island, in the eastern part of 
Murray Anchorage. It would be larger than the present Harring- 
ton Sound. One (/), about as large as Harrington Sound, would be 
enclosed in what is now Great Sound. It would have no visible 
outlet, and would be 4 to 10 feet deep. A few other small and 
mostly shallow lagoons or ponds, without outlets, marked 6, f, g, A, 
would also exist with water only 4 to 10 feet deep. 
A rise of 70 feet would cause very nearly all of these lagoons and 
sounds to disappear. As remarked above, these larger submerged 
sounds are due in part to erosion when they formed valleys on 
the dry land of Greater Bermuda. That they may, in some parts, 
have been formed by the falling in of great caverns in the still older 
limestones beneath them is quite possible, but that view, which has 
been advanced by others, is unnecessary and is also incapable of 
being proved, at present, for we, as yet, know nothing about the 
nature of the rocks that immediately underlie the sounds beyond 52 
feet below sea-level. ; 
However, the cavern theory does not seem adequate to account 
for valleys and sounds six to ten miles across, with very gently 
sloping bottoms. They, like the larger of those under discussion, 
are more likely to be the original valleys, formed between the primi- 
tive sand-dunes, for sand-dunes cannot exist without having valleys 
between them. Such valleys would have been the places where the 
waters flowed and then ordinary erosion would have done the rest. 
ec. Outer Channels or “Cuts.” 
1. Position and depth of the Cuts. 
The outer circle of reefs “flats” and boilers forms an almost 
unbroken barrier around the islands, as shown on maps I and IL.* 
They enclose a narrow strip of sea one-half to nearly two miles in 
width on the southern side, but six to nine miles wide on the 
western and northern sides. 
* Map II is printed on pl. xxxvii. Map I is fig. 12, p. 92. 
