44 THE BERMUDA ISLANDS. 



No one, it appears to me, who has examined any of the in- 

 ner waters of the archipelago can for a moment suppose that 

 the basins holding these waters could have been formed or 

 kept open through solution of the rock supports. Apart from 

 the special diflSculties which the Murray theory carries with it, 

 and which will be found more extensively discussed in the 

 general chapter treating of the formation of coral structures, 

 the facts presented by the Bermudas are such as to im- 

 mediately dispose of the theory in so far as it is made applica- 

 ble to them. The material resulting from rock degradation 

 which finds its way into the waters of the different lagoons 

 vastly exceeds in quantity thiit which could possibly be re- 

 moved through solution ; hence we have the entire floor 

 covered with a thick deposit of ooze, as our dredgings invaria- 

 blj' proved, and not an exposure of bare rock as we should ex- 

 pect to find in a basin of solution. Organic material, largely 

 foraminiferal, is also accumulating over the floor, and the sup- . 

 ply of formative material from this source alone is probably 

 fully equal to that which is removed chemically by the waters. 

 The quantity of this basal sediment is so great that during a 

 heavy storm, as was witnessed by Rein and others, the entire 

 water reaching to the outer reef was rendered milky white. As 

 regards the second question, the influence of a cavernous struct- 

 ure upon the erosion of the land, the facts are not readily ap- 

 proached. Mr. Fewkes, in a paper recently published* on the 

 " Origin of the Present Form of the Bermudas," argues that 

 the existing relations of the archipelago are not necessarily 

 the result of subsidence (although he admits that the evidences 

 of subsidence are unmistakable), but of normal erosion, assisted 

 by tlie breakages which in one form or another are likely to 

 follow the honeycombing of the rock. Caves or long passages 

 are assumed to penetrate into all j)arts of the islands, and by 

 their collapse are supposed to furnish the hollows which ulti- 

 mately form the lagoon-basin. This idea is not entirely new, 

 and was already entertained by Rein. 



*Proc. Boston Soc. Natural History, 1888, pp. 518 et seq. 



