EAST-INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO. 
245 
there are breakers nearly all round ; * the water within 
seems pretty deep in some places ; although steep in most 
parts outside, there appear to be several parts where a 
ship might find anchorage outside the breakers ; ’ coloured 
blue. — The Paracells have been accurately surveyed by 
Captain D. Boss, and charts on a large scale published : 
only a few low islets have been formed on these shoals, and 
this seems to be a general circumstance in the China Sea ; 
the sea close outside these reefs is deep ; several of them 
have a lagoon-like structure ; in other cases separate islets 
( Prattle , Piobert, Drummond, &c.) are so arranged round a 
moderately shallow space as to appear as if they had once 
formed one large atoll. — Bombay Shoal (one of the Para- 
cells) has the form of an annular reef, and is ‘ apparently 
deep within ; ’ it seems to have an entrance (Horsburgh, 
vol. ii. p. 332) on the west side ; it is very steep outside. — 
Discovery Shoal, also, is of an oval form, with a lagoon-like 
space within, and three openings leading into it, in which 
there is a depth from 2 to 20 fathoms. Outside, at the dis- 
tance (Horsburgh, vol. ii. p. 333) of only twenty yards from 
the reef, soundings could not be obtained. The Paracells 
are coloured blue. — Macclesfield Bank is a coral bank of 
great size, lying east of the Paracells ; some parts are level, 
with a sandy bottom, but generally the depth is very 
irregular, and intersected by deep channels ; 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 no bottom 
was found with a hundred fathoms ; coloured blue. — - 
The sea off the west coast of Palawan and the northern 
part of Borneo is strewed with shoals : Sivallozv 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.’ — Half-Moon Shoal has a 
similar structure ; Captain D. Boss describes it as a narrow 
