The frescoes, which from below appear the size of life, are found to be rough and monstrous daubs; each figure being nearly as many fathoms in length as a man is feet.

b is about a mile and a quarter long, and has a dry rock at its north end, the latitude of which is 15 degrees 39 minutes 20 seconds: it is divided from Endeavour Reef by a channel of nearly a mile wide, and fifteen fathoms deep: abreast of the south end of b, on the western edge of Endeavour Reef, there is a dry rock, in latitude 15 degrees 39 minutes 55 seconds.

But though fifteen fathoms is the maximum depth at which any Reef-Builder can prosper, there are many which will not sustain even that degree of pressure, and this fact has, as we shall see, an important influence on the structure of the Reef.

At the north-east end of the bay, separated from the point by a channel a mile wide, and more than five fathoms deep, is a small sandy island, with a reef extending for a mile off its north end.

'Bout ten fathom, I reckon; 'n' there's the lariat, two fathom more.