Barrier Reef

Barrier Reef, The Great, an immense reef of coral, which, beginning at Torres Strait, extends for 1260 miles S.E., and forms a smooth water channel varying from 10 to 100 miles in breadth along the E. coast of Australia. Though intricate and dangerous in its narrower parts, this passage is of inestimable value to navigation off a shore that would otherwise be exposed to all the fury of the Southern Ocean. There are several openings in the reef into the open sea.