238 CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES [Proc. 4TH Ser. 
Another fact which agrees with the theory that there has 
been a former land connection between at least many of the 
islands, is the shallowness of the water between most of them. 
An elevation of one hundred fathoms would connect all the 
southern islands, and a rise of seventy-one fathoms would 
bridge all of these except Chatham, Hood, and James, so far as 
the soundings that have been taken show. The only deep 
soundings known are between Abingdon and Wenman, 1189 
fathoms, between Bindloe and James, 684 fathoms, and between 
James and Tower Islands, 885 fathoms, depths of water which 
are not difficult to account for if one does not maintain too 
strongly that all of the islands were formerly connected into a 
single large one. 
Considering the volcanic nature of the islands, the general 
shallowness of the intervening water lends support to the sub- 
sidence theory, for it is hardly likely, if all of the bed of the 
ocean between the islands had been formed by marine volcanic 
activity, that the lava would have been so evenly distributed 
over this bed without leaving at least a few abysses. The grad- 
ual deepening of the water away from the shores of many of the 
islands also supports the subsidence theory, especially when we 
consider the fact that the slope of the submerged portions of 
some of the islands approximates the slope of the lower parts 
above water. 
While all of the above facts seem to point to a general sub- 
sidence of the islands, there are a few evidences of elevation. 
On both Indefatigable and Seymour Islands there are deposits 
containing a considerable number of marine fossils which have 
been elevated a few feet above the level of the sea. The great- 
est amount of elevation seems to have taken place on Albemarle 
Island. Snodgrass and Heller, of the Hopkins-Stanford Expe- 
dition to the Galapagos Islands, thought that they detected 
signs of elevation at Tagus Cove on the west side of this 
island. There is evidence of some elevation at the south end of 
Albemarle, concerning which Mr. W. H. Ochsner, the geolo- 
gist of the Academy’s expedition, has been kind enough to 
furnish the following information : 
“About one and one half miles inland from the settlement near 
Turtle Cove on the south shore of Albemarle Island, there is exposed 
a rather large remnant of an old sea beach. The deposit exists as 
white sands several feet thick and composed entirely of the fragments 
of coral, molluscan and echinoid, and other calcareous marine forms. 
