96 BULLETIN: MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY. 



channels leading into Moreton Bay from the north. The south channel 

 leading into that bay runs between Stradbroke and Moreton Islands. 

 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 miles in 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 the 

 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. The 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 nortli 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 XXVIII.). As an outlyer to 

 the former group is Lady Elliot Islet, about half way between it and 

 Breaksea 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 



