DISCOVERY OF EASTERN AUSTRALIA 437 



determined to sail through one of them into the open sea. 

 "By keeping in with the main land we should be in contin- 

 ual danger, besides the risk we should 'run in being locked 

 in with reefs and shoals." So he sailed through the passage 

 in the Barrier Reef that is now known by his name, and 

 " found a large sea rolling in from the South-East," which 

 gave him " no small joy." Ever since the 26th of May 

 he had been " entangled among islands and shoals." 

 He had " sailed above three hundred and sixty leagues 

 by the lead, without ever having a leadsman out of the 

 chains when the ship was under sail ; a circumstance 

 that perhaps never happened to any ship before, and yet 

 it was here absolutely necessary." 



Cook now sailed outside the Barrier Reef. But the course is nearly 

 was unsatisfactory. He was missing the chance of surveying wre .c ked 

 an unknown coast. He was also afraid of " overshooting 

 the passage (between New Holland and New Guinea) 

 supposing there to be one " ; and he " firmly believed " 

 there was one. And he now found that the dangers 

 of the outside course were even greater than those of 

 the inside. The " large hollow sea " proved that the ship 

 had been damaged more than had been thought, and one 

 pump had to be kept constantly at work. The trade wind 

 blew them towards the reef, and they studied its formation 

 with an interest that was keener than that of simple 

 curiosity, and inspired an admirable description. " A 

 reef such as one speaks of is scarcely known in Europe. 

 It is a wall of coral rock, rising almost perpendicularly 

 out of the unfathomable ocean, always overflown at high 

 water, generally seven or eight feet, and dry in places 

 at low water. The large waves of the vast ocean, meeting 

 with so sudden a resistance, make a terrible surf breaking 

 mountains high, especially in one case, where the general 

 trade wind blows directly upon it." l The tide dragged 

 them within eighty or a hundred yards of the breakers. 



1 Banks, p. 294. The passage also appears in the " Admiralty " 

 copy of Cook's Journal, which was written later than the " Corner " 

 copy, and in this part is much fuller (Wharton, p. 303). It seems that 

 the clerk in writing the Admiralty copy had the use of Banks's Journal. 



