of the basin bare at a considerable depth below sea-level. In part the basin has now silted up again; but we may fairly consider that at the time of greatest elevation, when the submerged valleys were being eroded, the depth of water in the Sound was much the same as it is now. Then as now the rivers seem to have discharged into a wide open gulf occupied by the sea.
However this may be, we see now a series of deeply trenched valleys, partly submerged and all opening into a wide and deep bay. These valleys do not now show rocky bottoms gradually sloping into the open harbour. The rock floor ceases several miles up and gives place first to an alluvial flat and then to an arm of the harbour. Like all the other valleys with which we have been dealing they cut to a definite base-level, approximately that of the sea, and the parts below that level are rapidly silting up.
Fortunately a large series of bridge-foundations has shown well the character of these valleys, where the rocky floor passes beneath the sea-level, and the late R. H. Worth gave an excellent series of sections across them. He took their contours to be evidence of glaciations. In this I cannot agree with him; but think rather that the extraordinary flatness of the valley-bottoms, and especially the uniform depth to which they were excavated, point to the attainment of a definite base-level.
