Outlines of the Bermudas. — Fewkes. 95 
whole conception of the manner of the aeolion coral rock forms 
is that the highest elevations of the old Bermuda were con- 
tiguous to the active surface. Depressions at a distance from 
the beach or even near it may not even have had their floors 
above the sea, and yet the enlargements of these depressions 
may have resulted as the "cave theory" demands. 
An opinion expressed by one of those who accepts the sub- 
mergence theory is that nothing remains at present of the old 
atoll of Bermuda except the position, so greatly modified are 
the contours. I think he is quite right. There is, it seems to 
me, no necessity even for the use of the term atoll in connec- 
tion with these islands except to indicate a circular reef with 
enclosed lagoons. Why is it not better to restrict the term 
atoll to islands with a different character. 
The original island from which the present fragments were 
derived possibly had a form like many of the Bahamas in 
which the atoll structure is next to impossible to discover. 
As an advocate of the "cave theory" it is thought consistent 
to suppose the proposition that the island on the Bermuda 
platform in its formation and original condition had the ring- 
shaped form. 
It can be said that the belief that erosion has been the most 
important factor in the sculpturing of the contour of the Ber- 
mudas, imparting to them their present outlines, does not 
necessarily commit one to the belief or disbelief in a theory of 
subsidence of the Bermuda platform. The effects of erosion 
are amply sufficient to explain what we now see in their con- 
tours, and their is no reason to look beyond it for the expla- ■ 
nation of the lagoons and the parts of Bermuda between 
North Rock and the existing islands. 
While we see everywhere in the islands the formation of 
caves and miniature examples of what has been carried on 
with grand results in the past, it must not be supposed that 
this erosion had any more of a cataclysmal nature than at 
present. The slow process of undermining of the soft coral 
limestone by inroads of the sea, and the formation of grottoes 
and of subterranean waterways honeycombed the land which 
formerly occupied the place now filled by the sounds, and 
little by little the roofs fell in to be transported away by an 
ever-present carrier — the sea. Every rain from the sky played 
