Sounds.

Along the western seaboard these mountains are penetrated by long winding sounds, or fiords, which are of great depth, but universally become shallower at their entrance into the sea. Not much is known yet as to the actual depth of these sounds, most of the soundings recorded giving no bottom at depths of from 150 to 900 feet. The deepest soundings on the chart are 1728 feet in Breaksea Sound off First Cove; 1500 feet in Thompson Sound, off Deas Cove; and 1284 feet in Milford Sound, off the Stirling waterfall. Bligh Sound seems to be the shallowest, the greatest depth being 468 feet, unless it be Preservation Inlet, where the greatest depth recorded is no bottom at 336 feet.

The entrances to most of the sounds vary in depth between 150 and 280 feet, the exceptions being Preservation Inlet with a depth of only 14 to 84 feet, Milford Sound with a depth of 360ft, Doubtful Sound with a depth of 372ft, and Thompson Sound with a depth of 456ft. But of these, Doubtful Sound, although 372ft deep at the entrance, shallows to 150ft on either side of Banza page 6Island, so that, with the exception of Preservation, Thompson, and Milford, all the sounds have at their entrance an average depth of 215ft, with a limit of variation more or less of 65 feet.

The mountains that surround Preservation and Chalky Inlets are rounded in outline, and comparatively low, the sides being covered with bush down to the water’s edge; but from Dusky northwards, high, almost perpendicular, cliffs are often seen, until in Milford Sound the land rises abruptly from the water in precipieces 1500ft high (see frontispiece). These steep cliffs are, however, confined to the interior of the sounds, for the sea coast is nowhere high, but falls with a comparatively gentle slope nearly to the sea level. See fig. 21.