anxieties and danger of the outer passage; which, short as it is, has doubtless sprinkled grey hairs over many a seaman's head. (*Footnote. Afterwards Governor of New Zealand.) ITS DESCRIPTION. Although Booby Island is a mere rock, from the various associations connected with it, being during one half of the year the constant resort of Europeans, it becomes at once a place of interest, and imperatively demands some notice at our hands. It is a quarter of a mile in diameter, flat, and about thirty feet high, the summit being bare porphyry rock. A valley intersects the north-west side of the island, in which a few creepers, some brushwood, and two or three trees of tolerable size, with a peculiar broad green leaf, bearing a great resemblance to that of the wild almond of the West Indies, were seen, giving shelter to some pigeons and quails, in which latter the island abounds, even more than in the bird which gives its name to the locality. Still, however, from the white colour of the top of the island, produced by the boobies, it is clearly one of their temporary haunts; and indeed, subsequently, in the month of September, their season of incubation, Mr. Bynoe saw them there in great abundance. The contrary was the case with the quail, which, by that time, had completely deserted the island. Turtle were once found on this isle, but they are now never taken. A few of the stones mentioned by Captain King are still to be seen on the summit. REMARKS ON THE CORAL REEFS OF AUSTRALIA. This being a point at which ships correct or test the going of their chronometers, it was necessary to obtain observations for longitude. The spot chosen for the purpose was the landing-place near the South-West corner of the islet, and which we found to be 9 degrees 45 minutes East of Port Essington. Our opportunities of examination with regard to the inner edge of the Great Barrier, and its contiguous islands and reefs, terminating at Booby Island; it may not be deemed irrelevant to hazard a few remarks in recapitulation. In the first place there was a very perceptible increase in the elevation of the reefs and of those islands resting on similar constructions, as we advanced to the northward. Cairncross Island, in latitude 11 1/4 degrees South, composed of heaped up consolidated fragments, attains an elevation of 17 feet; but its trees rise to a height of 75 feet, whilst to the southward, in latitude 13 1/2 degrees South the islands were partially flooded by a tide, rising only about six feet. The reefs are all either circular or oval-shaped, with a rim rising round them. The description of that fronting the isle we visited for Boydan will illustrate their general character. Their northern ends are the highest, and are almost invariably marked by a heap of dead coral and shells, which as we have mentioned, in one or two instances, from its white appearance has often been taken for sand.