WARRIOR ISLAND REEF. 



331 



find soundings outside of it. The water gradually 

 deepens from the 20 fathoms inside the reefs, to 

 40, 50, and 60 fathoms out at sea, which depths 

 we found every where between this northern end of 

 the Barrier and Portlock Reefs, and from the latter 

 as far south as the parallel of Flinders* Entrance. 



Inside the Barrier here, between Murray and 

 Darnley Islands, the reefs are very large and nume- 

 rous. A few smaller reefs also exist some miles 

 north of Darnley Island, but with those exceptions, 

 from Anchor Key to the westward, a clear sea is 

 found, till we reach a very broad and persistent reef, 

 which stretches off from Bristow Island and the coast 

 of New Guinea, as far south as Warrior Island, a 

 distance of thirty-five miles. This looks as if it were 

 the northern end of the Great Barrier thrown sixty 

 miles to the westward of its true position. A line 

 of large reefs runs from it to the S. by W M towards 

 the reefs which lie immediately east of Mount 

 Adolphus Island, in a line parallel to the direction 

 of the outer Barrier; but south of Warrior Island, 

 these reefs are broken through hv several broad 

 clear spaces. To the westward of this last band of 

 reefs there is a shoal sea, with a remarkable uni- 

 formity of bottom, occupying all the central parts of 

 Torres Strait from north to south, between Cape 

 York and Turtle-back Island. The depth is from 

 nine to eleven fathoms, the bottom sand and mud. 

 As far as examined by us there are no coral 

 islands, nor coral reefs in this central band, except 



