west between Cape Deliverance and the north-east entrance to Torres
Strait--a distance of about 600 miles. This space was so traversed by the
two vessels of the expedition without any detached reefs being
discovered, that it does not seem probable that any such exist there,
with the exception of the Eastern Fields of Flinders, the position and
extent of which may be regarded as determined with sufficient accuracy
for the purposes of navigation, and the reefs alluded to in Volume 1,
which, if they exist at all, and are not merely the Eastern Fields laid
down far to the eastward of their true position, must be sought for
further to the southward. The shores in question may now be approached
with safety, and vessels may run along them either by day or night under
the guidance of the chart--without incurring the risk of coming upon
unknown reefs, such as doubtless exist in other parts of the Coral Sea
further to the southward--judging from the occasional discovery of a new
one by some vessel which had got out of the beaten track. Whalers will no
doubt find it worth their while--with the characteristic enterprise of
their class--to push into those parts of the Coral Sea now first thrown
open to them, and, although we have not as yet sufficient grounds to
warrant the probability of success in the fishery, yet I may mention that
whales were seen on several occasions from both of our vessels.

USEFUL PRODUCTIONS OF NEW GUINEA.

This naturally originates the question--to what extent do the Louisiade
Archipelago and the south-east coast of New Guinea afford a field for
commercial enterprise? What description of trade can be established there
by bartering European goods for the productions of these countries?
Unfortunately at present most of the evidence on this point is of a
negative kind. Besides articles of food, such as pigs, yams, and
coconuts, and weapons and ornaments of no marketable