232 APPENDIX. 



deep cuts or channels. I am not able to perceive in the 

 published charts (its limits, however, are not very accurately 

 known) whether the central part is deeper, which I suspect 

 is the case, as in the Great Chagos Bank, in the Indian 

 Ocean ; not coloured. — Scarborough Shoal : this coral-shoal 

 is engraved with a double row of crosses, forming a circle, 

 as if there was deep water within the reef: close outside 

 there was no bottom, with a hundred fathoms; coloured 

 blue. — The sea off the west coast of Palawan and the 

 northern part of Borneo is strewed with shoals : Swallow 

 Shoal, according to Horsburgh (vol. ii. p. 431), "is formed, 

 like most of the shoals hereabouts, of a belt of coral-rocks, 

 with a basin of deeper water within." — PPalf-Moon Shoal 

 has a similar structure ; Capt. D. Ross describes it, as a 

 narrow belt of coral-rock, " with a basin of deep water in 

 the centre," and deep sea close outside. — Bo?nbay Shoal 

 appears (Horsburgh, vol. ii. p. 432) "to be a basin of 

 smooth water surrounded by breakers." These three shoals 

 I have coloured blue. — The Paraquas Shoals are of a 

 circular form, with deep gaps running through them; not 

 coloured. — A bank gradually shoaling to the depth of 30 

 fathoms, extends to a distance of about 20 miles from the 

 northern part of Borneo, and to 30 miles from the northern 

 part of Pala-wan. Near the land this bank appears 

 tolerably free from danger, but a little further out it is 

 thickly studded with coral-shoals, which do not generally 

 rise quite to the surface ; some of them are very steep-to, 

 and others have a fringe of shoal-water round them. I 

 should have thought that these shoals had level surfaces, 

 had it not been for the statement made by Horsburgh 

 " that most of the shoals hereabouts are formed of a belt 

 of coral." But, perhaps that expression was more particu- 

 larly applied to the shoals further in the offing. If these 



