be one in which we could see
everything."

On 2nd January we had made 11,340 miles, or 5,250 French leagues, since
our starting-point in the Japan Seas. Before the ship's head stretched
the dangerous shores of the coral sea, on the north-east coast of
Australia. Our boat lay along some miles from the redoubtable bank on
which Cook's vessel was lost, 10th June, 1770. The boat in which Cook
was struck on a rock, and, if it did not sink, it was owing to a piece
of coral that was broken by the shock, and fixed itself in the broken
keel.

I had wished to visit the reef, 360 leagues long, against which the
sea, always rough, broke with great violence, with a noise like
thunder. But just then the inclined planes drew the Nautilus down to a
great depth, and I could see nothing of the high coral walls. I had to
content myself with the different specimens of fish brought up by the
nets. I remarked, among others, some germons, a species of mackerel as
large as a tunny, with bluish sides, and striped with transverse bands,
that disappear with the animal's life.

These fish followed us in shoals, and furnished us with very delicate
food. We took also a large number of gilt-heads, about one and a half
inches long, tasting like dorys; and flying pyrapeds like submarine
swallows, which, in dark nights, light alternately the air and water
with their phosphorescent light. Among the molluscs and zoophytes, I
found in the meshes of the net several species of alcyonarians, echini,
hammers, spurs, dials, cerites, and hyalleae. The flora was represented
by beautiful floating seaweeds, laminariae, and macrocystes,
impregnated with the mucilage that transudes through their pores; and
among which I gathered an admirable Nemastoma Geliniarois, that was
classed among the natural curiosities of the museum.

Two days after crossing the coral sea, 4th January, we sighted the
Papuan coasts. On this occasion, Captain Nemo informed me that his
intention was to get into the Indian Ocean by the Strait of Torres.
His communication ended there.

The Torres Straits are nearly thirty-four leagues wide; but they are
obstructed by an innumerable quantity of islands, islets, breakers, and
rocks, that make its navigation almost impracticable; so that Captain
Nemo took all needful precautions to cross them. The Nautilus,
floating betwixt wind and water, went at a moderate pace. Her screw,
like a cetacean's tail, beat the waves slowly.

Profiting b