APPENDIX. 257 



of wood, or stone, or iron, so placed on their outer islands 

 or cays, that they may serve to guide those vessels to a cer- 

 tain, and safe landfall. On your return to Sydney, you 

 will consult his Excellency, the Governor, on the best means 

 of effecting this object, if possible, by means of the colonial 

 resources, and you wiil transmit to our Secretary a full 

 report on the subject. 



4. The position and dimensions of the several detached 

 reefs and shoals which lie to the southward of the Great 

 Barrier, and which appear, though with long intervals, to 

 stretch towards Howe Island. 



5. The Bellona, Bampton, Mellish, and other reefs to 

 the westward of New Caledonia, may be considered as one 

 large group, and are probably the summits of a ridge of 

 submarine hills, which, taking a parallel direction to the 

 Barrier, form, between it and them, the wide sea channel 

 of approach to the Barrier openings. All these rocks, as 

 well as the Farquhars, must be explored and charted so as 

 to define the eastern and western limits of that channel. 



6. In the more immediate mouth of Torres Strait, the 

 reefs, islands, and intervening passages having been dis- 

 covered at different periods, and laid down by different 

 authorities, assume a most complicated appearance, but by 

 carefully collating what has been done by Flinders, Bligh, 

 King, and other navigators, you will probably succeed in 

 fixing on some comparatively safe channels, by which vessels 

 may pass through from the eastward, and you will consider 

 this to be one of the most important objects of the expe- 

 dition. 



7. In Torres Strait it does not appear that to the north- 

 ward of Prince of Wales Islands any good channels will be 

 found, and we do not wish that you should spend any 

 valuable time there, nor even between them and Endeavour 

 Strait ; but of this latter strait, a complete survey, with its 



VOL. II. s 



