Page:Journals of Several Expeditions Made in Western Australia.djvu/23

 mode of well sinking would be tolerably certain of obtaining a supply; and the method of borings so successfully attempted in France and England, called the "The Artesian Well," might finally be called in to the settlers' aid, with an entire dependence upon its efficacy.

The harbours, and character of the coast generally, form a subject of anxious inquiry. Information upon this head is still less full than could be wished, but, as far as our discoveries do extend they are satisfactory. Colonel Hanson asserts, "that Princess Royal Harbour is equal to any port in the world." Our latest survey establishes Cockburn Sound to be a safe and excellent asylum. Gage's Road is a safe anchorage, but the seasons as well as the soundings, should be well understood by the mariner who approaches these shores. The recently explored littorale of Geographe Bay presents a front of seventy miles in extent, along which there is safe lying, with good anchorage, but only during the summer season; and where possibly future ages shall witness many a cargo shipped and landed at quays and wharfs along this hospitable shore.

It would be foreign to the object of this prefatory sketch, to touch upon the species of information useful to emigrants; this service has already been