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of calcareous stone, in some places fifty feet thick. The soil at the top was little better than sand, but was overspread with shrubs, mostly of one kind, a whitish velvety plant—(artriplex reniformis of Brown), nearly similar to what is called at Port Jackson, Botany-Bay greens. Amongst these, the petrels had everywhere undermined; and from the excessive heat of the sun, the reflexion from the sand, and frequently stepping up to the mid-leg in the burrows, my strength was scarcely equal to reaching the highest hill near the middle of the island. I had no thermometer, but judged the temperature could scarcely be less than 120°; and there was not a breath of air stirring. My fatigue was, however, rewarded by an extensive set of bearings, and I overlooked the lower and larger island to the eastward, and saw the water behind it communicating with Smoky Bay. That low land and the island upon which I stood, being the north-easternmost of this archipelago, must I conceive, be the in Nuyts' chart; notwithstanding their relatively small distance from those of St. Francis. The bay to the northward, between these islands and the main land, I named, as well in allusion to St. Peter as to the deceptive hope we had formed, of penetrating by it some distance into the interior country. The bearings most essential to the survey, taken from this station, were these, On returning to the shore to complete my observations, a