96 BULLETIN: MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY. 
channels leading into Moreton Bay from the north. Тһе south channel 
leading into that bay runs between Stradbroke and Moreton lslands. 
About eighty miles north, we come upon a second and similar projection 
from the main coast line. Great Sandy or Frazer Island is a long spit 
rising to 800 feet at one point (Plate XXVII.), its northern extremity 
forming the eastern side of Hervey Bay, while its southern half is sepa- 
rated from the low coast of the mainland by a strait varying from one to 
six milesin width, into the northern end of which flows the Mary River. 
The Great Sandy Strait is filled with small low islands or with extensive 
flats, leaving only a narrow channel navigable for small vessels. A 
mere examination of the charts plainly shows that Great Sandy Island 
as well as the islands forming Moreton Bay once formed a part of tho 
adjoining mainland; that they have been gradually separated from 
‘it by erosion and by the combined action of the scour of Brisbane and 
of Mary Rivers; while Breaksea Spit, with the adjoining shoals, covered 
with sand and dead coral, parts of which are awash, is the remnant of 
a former extension of Frazer Island, stretching about seventeen miles 
beyond Sandy Cape. 
From Hervey Bay the coast takes a more westerly trend. Between 
Boyne and Fitzroy Rivers, lies Curtis Island (Plate XXVIII), which at 
its highest points rises to more than 450 feet. Тһе southern extension 
of Curtis Island is known as Facing Island ; the latter is separated from 
Curtis Island by shallow flats, the Pelican Banks. The widest part of 
the channel between Facing Island and the mainland is not more than 
two and a half miles; at its southern extremity the channel gradually 
narrows, and at the “Narrows” Curtis Island may be said to be still 
united with the mainland ; the channel to the north of the Narrows 
gradually widens until it unites with the Fitzroy River close to its mouth. 
Parallel with the line of the mainland, at a distance of from thirty- 
five to forty miles, extends a line of low coral islands, forming the 
Bunker and the Capricorn groups (Plate XXVIIL). As an outlyer to 
the former group is Lady Elliot Islet, about half way between it and 
3reaksea Spit. From the Capricorn group a line of islands extends at 
right angles to the general trend of these groups, which is in continuation 
of Breaksea Spit to within twenty miles of the mainland. 
The ten fathom line is close to the shore of the mainland ; the slope 
of Curtis Channel is very gradual, falling somewhat irregularly to twenty- 
three to thirty fathoms as a general rule close to the line of the western 
edge of the southern island groups named above, and from twelve to 
eighteen fathoms off the northern Capricorn Islands. ‘The channels 
