Page:A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2.djvu/184

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Sir Edward Pellew's Group, as will be seen by a reference to the plan, affords numerous anchorages against both the south-east and north-west monsoon; but unless it should be within the two small isles near the south-west side of Vanderlin's Island, where the depth was not well ascertained, there is not a single harbour, the different bays and coves being too shallow to admit a ship. Wood for fuel is easy to be procured; and water may be had in December, and probably as late as April or May, but I think not afterwards. The most accessible watering place we could find, was at the back of the mangroves near our principal anchorage, within the east point of North Island, where, with some trouble, our casks were filled; and at a beach there, left dry at low water, the seine was hauled with some success. At Vanderlin's Island there are many benches fit for the seine; and indeed it seemed superior to the other islands as well for this, as for every other purpose, when a ship can lie there; it is also the most frequented by the Indians, and may probably have fixed inhabitants.

The rates of the time keepers were found from afternoon's altitudes in an artificial horizon, between the 16th and 26th; and the means, with their errors from mean Greenwich time, at noon there on the last day of observation, were as under:

This rate of No. 543 is only 0″,19 more than that found at Sweers' Island, and so far as the six sets of lunars may be relied on, the longitude by this time keeper was not far from the truth; the letting down on the passage therefore did not seem to have produced any