new lands to the geography of this part of the world; and H.M.S.  Fly and Bramble had been commissioned at home for surveying service in Australasia.  This expedition, under the command of Captain F.P.  Blackwood, arrived at Sydney on the 10th of October, whilst we were there, and sailed soon after our departure, to commence tracing the outer Barrier Reefs, a service attended with no ordinary risk, but which has been happily completed, and a beacon erected to show vessels the best entrance, without a mishap.

Since the early part of this work was written this valuable addition to the survey of New Holland has induced an enterprising master of a merchant vessel to try the eastward passage through Torres Strait.  As a proof of the practicability of this route I may state, that the above vessel passed through Torres Strait in January, went to Sydney, and returned for another cargo to Ballytown, in Allas Strait, by the May following.  This passage, an account of which has been published in the Nautical Magazine, was made through the Barrier Reef by Captain Blackwood’s Beacon on Raines Islet; but as this is out of the limits of the westerly monsoon, a better passage, doubtless, would have been effected by following a more northerly route, as recommended by Captain Blackwood.*

(Footnote.  See Nautical Magazine for December 1845.)

STEAM COMMUNICATION BETWEEN INDIA AND AUSTRALIA.

With reference, however, to the anticipated steam communication* between India and Australia, which will bring Sydney within nearly sixty days of England, I think with Captain Blackwood that steamers should at all times use Captain King’s inner route;** and much of the delay occasioned by anchoring at night would be obviated by cautiously approaching, at reduced speed, the reefs, the position of which might be distinguished by means of a powerful light at the vessel’s head or bowsprit end; when a course might be shaped for the next and so on.  As the smooth water within the shelter of the Great Barrier Reefs affords facilities for steering with great nicety, a steamer, with care, might effect a saving of fuel as well as time by passing through Torres Strait without anchoring.

(Footnote.  Steam communication between Sydney and Singapore would require three vessels of six hundred tons, one of which should leave Sydney and Singapore on the 1st of each month.  Their engines should be of 200 horse-power, and furnished with tubular boilers, which consume a fifth less fuel than the others; they must carry at the least 200 tons, which, at the rate of 14 tons per diem, is sufficient for fourteen days fullspeed steaming, in which time, at the rate of 7 knots an hour, 2,352 miles will have been traversed, which is about 100 miles more than the distance between Sydney and Port Essington, and about 420 miles more than between the latter place and Singapore.  This clearly shows that Port Essington is, as I have before stated, the best place for a coal-depot;