From Torres Strait to Dampier Land the shelf spreads out, and connects Australia with New Guinea and the Malay Archipelago.
The islands of Torres Strait have been shown to be the denuded remnant of a former extension of Cape York peninsula in North Queensland.
The " Pandora," under Captain Edwards, was sent out in search of the " Bounty," and discovered the islands of Cherry and Mitre, east of the Santa Cruz group, but she was eventually lost on a reef in Torres Strait.
The surveys and reports of Captain Moresby in 1874 brought home to Queensland (and Australia generally) the dangers possible to her commerce were the coasts opposite to Torres Strait and the entrance to the splendid waterway inside the Barrier Reef to fall into the possession of a foreign power.
It has an excellent harbour, Port Kennedy, and is a port of call for mail steamers and the centre of the beche-de-mer and pearl fisheries of the Torres Strait.
