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 off that way.”{ 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 sufficiently 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 sufficiently 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 1609. 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.r 
‘The Bermudas bee broken Llands, fiue hundred of them in manner of 
an Archipelagus (at least if you may call them all Lands 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 itis said of them that they were thirteene or fourteene leagues; 
and more in longitude as I have heard. Forno 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 of 
Voyages and Travels in all parts of the World. By John Pinkerton. London, 
180814. Vol. XIII., pp. 1-253. 
t Pinkerton, op. cit., Vol. XIII., p. 173. 
+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, pp. 1734~53. Copious ex- 
tracts are given in Lefroy, op. cit., Vol. L., pp. 22-54. 
