THE 



POPULAR SCIENCE 

 MONTHLY. 



SEPTEMBER, 1914 



AN EXPEDITION" TO THE CORAL EEEFS OF 

 TORRES STRAITS 



By ALFRED GOLDSBOROUGH MAYER 



EARLY in September, 1913, the expedition of the Department of 

 , Marine Biology of the Carnegie Institution of Washington 

 arrived at Thursday Island in Torres Straits off the northern end of 

 Cape York. 



Thursday Island owing to the deep water in its vicinity has grown 

 to be a busy port of call, although it is barely a mile in length and is 

 so completely surrounded by the larger members of the archipelago that 

 only the most detailed British Admiralty charts records its name, and 

 even the painstaking Captain Cook who first sailed past it in the 

 "Endeavour" in 1770, merely notes it as one of the Prince of Wales 

 Islands. 



Yet to our eyes it seemed an important place. Four of us — Clark, 

 Harvey, Mayer and Tennent, together with Mr. John Mills, the able 

 engineer of our naptha launch, had come nearly half the distance 

 around the world from the eastern states of America, while Mr. Potts 

 had left his cloistered quarters in Trinity Hall, Cambridge, and Mr. 

 E. M. Grosse, the artist, had joined the expedition in Sydney. 



Thursday Island was the intended objective of our journey for 

 Saville-Kent in his beautifully illustrated book upon the Great Barrier 

 Reef of Australia had especially designated it as being the site par 

 excellence from which to study the coral reefs of Torres Straits. 



Our surprise and disappointment was great therefore when we found 

 the coral reefs to be overwhelmed with a layer of mud above which only 

 the largest corals could raise their heads and thrive. The region seemed 

 an ideal one only for masses of fleshy, dull olive-green alcyonaria 

 (Sarcophyton) superficially resembling huge lichens several feet in 

 diameter. The remarkably strong currents with their freight of silt 

 and mud were fatal to luxuriant coral growth and the echinoderm life 

 was hopelessly deficient, so that even the cheerful Clark, as enthusiastic 

 a collector as ever lived, was in despair. 



vol lxxxv. — 15. >*• 



