low, having been falling for some time before. Besides this, there was ample warning in the unusually gloomy lurid appearance of the sky; the weather also was misty, with showers of rain as the ship approached the course of the storm.) BANKS STRAIT. Leaving Sydney, we resumed our work to the southward; and towards the end of October anchored under Swan Island, lying midway on the south side of Banks Strait, which trends West by North, with a width of twelve miles, a length of seventeen, and a depth of from 16 to 25 fathoms; it is formed by the north-east point of Tasmania and the islands lying to the south of Flinders. Barren Island, one of the latter, has a remarkable peak at its south-eastern end, and some high rounded hills on the north-western; it is twenty-two miles in extent, lying in an east and west direction. It is separated from Flinders by a channel, which I named after Sir John Franklin, four miles wide, thickly strewed with islands and shoals. The eastern entrance is almost blocked up by sandbanks, extending off five miles and a half from a large island (called by us after the Vansittart, but known to the sealers by the name of Gun-carriage Island) and leaving only a narrow, shifting passage of 2 and 4 fathoms between their northern side and Flinders Island. The anchorages which lie in the western part of Franklin Channel are not so sheltered as those between Barren and Clarke Islands. The latter has two rounded summits, the highest 690 feet, resembling a saddle, either from west or east. The rugged peaks of Strzelecki, reaching an elevation of 2,550 feet, rise immediately over the northern point of the west entrance of Franklin Channel. BLACK REEF. The north-east extreme of Tasmania is singularly low, with a coastline of sandhills. Out of this level tract rise Mounts William and Cameron; the latter, 1,730 feet high, is the highest of a group of peaks, cresting a ridge, whilst the former is a solitary pyramidal hill, 730 feet high, used as a guide for craft in working through the strait. When it bears South by West, vessels may close with the south shore, being then past the Black Reef,* and the rocks that lie off the coast to the eastward, as far as Eddystone Point. The most outlying and remarkable are the St. George's Rocks, a cluster of grey granite boulders, 66 feet high; a patch of moored kelp, however, on which the water sometimes breaks, lies three miles East-South-East from the Black Reef. The principal danger on the northern side of the eastern entrance of the strait is Moriarty Bank, which extends off four miles and a half east from the south-east point of Clarke Island; there is, however, a narrow passage of 16 fathoms close to the latter. This Bank, which has a couple of rocks near its north-eastern part, is steep to, and may be avoided by keeping the south point of Clarke Island, to bear to the southward of West 12 degrees North. Mount William, also, bearing South 7 degrees West clears the outer end of it.