THE GREAT BARRIER REEF.* THE issue of this truly regal
description of one of the wonders of the world, the Great Coral-Reef of Australia, will doubtless once more animate the discussion on the structure of coral- reefs, begun by Charles Darwin fifty years ago. The theory of • subsidence advocated by him has been triumphantly de- molished by some naturalists, who, however, have signally failed to replace it by an explanation carrying even the smallest conviction with it. And so far as the Great Barrier Reef itself is concerned, the subsidence theory appears likely to receive stronger circumstantial proof than its author ever claimed for it ; for Darwin was humble about it, and wrote that there was little to support his view. Humility is not the distinguishing characteristic of the age, and is certainly not admitted by the modern school of naturalists into their list of qualifications. Because the great workers of the past century have been convicted of absurd errors, we should not haste to depreciate them; and it is surely unwise to discredit Darwin, who began the movement which we of this nineteenth century are so proud of. Great men make great mistakes,—granted ; but where they trod carefully, it behoves us to do the same, lest we take hold of ourselves "too soundly by the nose." Those who have actually seen and studied the Great Reef, have remarked indications of sub- sidence; and Mr. Kent compares the fauna of New Guinea and the Australian mainland, to show that at a distant epoch these countries were joined, where now six or seven fathoms of coral-studded waters intervene. A corresponding upheaval would render most of the channel between the coast and the The Great Barrier Roof of Australia : its Products. By W. Savillo.Kont,
F.La, Illustrated. London : W. H. Allen and Co.
Reef impracticable for vessels ; and an upheaval of forty fathoms would connect Australia and Tasmania once more and only the outer fringe of the Great Reef would remain to be washed by the sea.
The Great Barrier Reef lies on the north-east coast of Australia, and is, indeed, entirely within the territory of Queensland. From its northern end in Torres Straits, about seven-and-a-half degrees south, to Lady Elliot Island, situated in the parallel of twenty-four degrees, it is twelve hundred and fifty miles long. The distance from the mainland to the outer fringe of reefs varies from the New Guinea end, where it is ninety miles, to thirty miles in the middle portion of the Reef ; and again, from forty and sixty to a hundred and fifty at the southern end. Between the series of outer reefs and the mainland lies the " Inner Route," a calm inland sea studded with islets, reefs, and shoals, and sheltered from,— " The long wash of Australasian seas,"— and serving as a tranquil waterway for the largest vessels.
The first impressions which we received concerning the nature of this great wonder were not favourable. The cele- brated Cook—a name which, alas ! unfortunately somewhat clogs the palate of the explorer—brought home a forbidding account of the dangers of its cruel edges, and the barrenness of the land behind it. We need not be surprised at his opinion of the Reef, for he had no time to examine the oyster-beds and the pearl-shells, or to calculate the numbers of the beche-de•. mer. The Great Reef was a wonder, but, if the pun may be allowed, it was a wonder the famous navigator got safely away from it. As to newly discovered lands, they are generally described as barren and uninviting. The cruise of the ' Fly,' under Captain Blackwood, in 1842.46, accompanied by Pro- fessor J. B. Jukes, furnished a careful and comprehensive account of the Barrier Reef, its shape and structure, It is impossible to convey to the reader the appearance presented by the coral islets and reefs of this extraordinary animal growth. Imagine a landscape of low rocks of all sizes and shapes, some miles in length, some only yards in circum- ference, separated by pools, beneath which millions of corals and anemones and oysters and brilliant fish are displayed in living magnificence ; the rocks above-water for the most part covered with bleached and living corals in every stage of life and decay and erosion, and exhibiting at their edges the exquisite colours of different varieties of coral animals ; and amongst the innumerable shapes and excrescences, occasional large, symmetrical, spherical boulders, consisting entirely of a single coral growth, and resembling enormous coloured sponges with regular convoluted markings. Imagine this, we say, at low-water, under an Australian sky, when the water is still; and the eye that hungers for striking scenery may satiate itself. The sharpness of definition incident to the clear atmosphere of Australia has enabled Mr. Saville-Kent to produce some astonishingly realistic coral-scapes of the Great Reef by means of photography. The tone and shadows of some of the reef-views are not only soft, but with a fine evening clearness of light ; and the water itself is admirably rendered with the submerged corals, and sometimes the uncouth beehe-de-mer. The depth and definition we associate with photography is present, of course. A beautiful example of a coral-reef is that one taken from the Crescent Reef, Outer Barrier Series, No. 6. An equally fine photograph is that of the stinging-anemone. The colours of the living corals are brilliant and rich beyond compare ; and displayed as they are without stint, one is forced to remember that truly American, but none the less happy, phrase of Artemus Ward's, " regardless of expense," which he applied, we believe, to the sun shining in its strength. Some will be reminded of Gray's famous lines. And it is truly a marvel, when we think of the thousands of square miles• covered with these lovely living blossoms. A " brain" coral —so called from its convoluted ridges—shown in one plate, was a rich, golden-brown on the ridges, and a velvety green in the recesses ; a stag's-horn coral, belonging to the Madrepora genus, is a rich golden-brown, tipped with white ; another variety is bronze-green, with yellow tips ; another, bright shrimp-pink, with golden tips ; another with stems of pale yellow or buff-white, and tips of china or turquoise-blue ; and the polyps themselves in the ends of the branches are an emerald-green ; and so on through a bewildering and gorgeous scale of contrasted colours, profuse and intense almost beyond the most vivid imagination. The most 'valuable industry of the Great Reef is the pearl- shell fishing. Pearls, be it remarked, are only an incident in the pursuit of the mother-of-pearl. Torres Straits is the fishing-ground, and the best pearl-shell known is raised from off the New Guinea coast, at the depth of twenty fathoms. The average value for the last five years of the exported pearl-shell is stated at 269,000. The search for the shell is conducted in luggers of ten tons and upwards, which are manned by the diver, the tender (who manages the life-lines and breathing apparatus), and four pumping-hands. The wages are good, but the work hard. The diver gets £3 for a hundred pairs of shells ; and if the yield is six hundred pairs a month,. he may earn £200 a year. The price obtained by the shelling-stations is £90 a ton. These are average prices, for the take varies, and the price of the best shell is more than double the average. Pearl-shell is obtained also from Western Australia, Bombay, Egypt, Zanzibar, Linga, and Manilla—the beet of which, twenty years ago, before the dis- covery of the Torres Straits' wealth of shell, sold for £400 a ton—Penang, Macassar, Shark's Bay, Ceylon, and Polynesia generally. It is the " black-lipped " or " Tahiti Black " which produces the best pearls.
The oyster and beche-de-mer fisheries together average about £30,000 a year, two-thirds of this value being from the beche-de-mer. The head-quarters of the oyster-fishery are Moreton and Wide Bays, quite at the southern end of the Great Reef; but all the varieties exist in the tropical waters, and their true habitats are the coral-islets of the Great Reef. Oysters are cultivated on various surfaces, faseines, split. palings coated with cement, cemented tiles, &a.; but the " split-paling " contrivance is the most convenient and suc- cessful. As yet it has not been found necessary, such is the fecundity of the Queensland oyster, the ordinary commercial variety, Ostrea glornerata, to dredge for the embryo, as is done in European waters. A remarkable feature of oyster-life is a mangrove bank of oysters, where the molluscs cling to the roots of the red and white mangrove. Oyster-cultivation seems a remunerative and by no means laborious occupation, and a healthy one too.
The beche-de-mer belongs to a group called the Hole- thuridas, of the class Echinodermata, which includes all 'varieties of " star-fish " and spine-bearing sea-urchins—the " sea-slugs" and " sea-mouse " of our coasts. The French name is derived from the " bieho-do-mar " of the Portuguese navigators. The Chinese, those eaters of expensive soups— witness their "bird's-nest soup " —have for ages eaten them. They are caught at low-tide by wading. The fish vary from eighteen inches to three or four feet, but when boiled and dried they shrink to a few inches. The value of the dried fish is about that of the pearl-shell. The fish-supply of the Great Barrier Region is varied, and contains some excellent eating-fish. The size of a 30 lb. mackerel alone is enough to make one's mouth water; and this, the horse-mackerel or king-fish, if boiled like salmon, makes a capital table-fish. The rest of the mackerel family, the herrings, the cods, and the salmon, are not well represented. The Australian whiting, which is not the same as ours, is a useful and important fish. The flat-heads are fairly abundant, as are the sea-pikes ; and the genus Belone, allied to our " green-bone," is represented by a good fish, the Fitzroy gar- pike ; but the best-known Queensland fishes are the grey mullets, the sea-mullet being the most valuable species, this fish reaching ten or twelve pounds. Smelts, anchovies, and other fish are known, particularly the shovel-nosed skate, which may attain a hundred pounds. Some beautiful colours are seen among the non-edible families. With these brilliant- hued fishes, set forth in their glory together with the coral. animals, in some fine chromo-plates, we must reluctantly leave the Great Barrier Reef.
Mr. Saville-Kent's quarto volume is a handsome one, worthy of its subject, and it is enriched by photographs of the typical scenery of the Great Reef, the fishes, and coloured plates of the more striking animals and fishes. It is chiefly descriptive, but an area so vast could hardly be treated in any other manner; and information of the most varied and interesting character is provided hand-in-hand with the more aesthetic details. It deserves to be studied, for the Great Reef is unique,—one of the most strange and yet beautiful features of the Southern hemisphere ; and, moreover, it belongs to the British Empire.
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