Page:Narrative of a survey of the intertropical and western coasts of Australia, Volume 2.djvu/390

 SAILIN( DIRECIlONS. Australia; it is thirty'-four milan wide at its entrance, (be- tween the North. west Cape and Cape Locker,) and forty- Sect. IV. five miles deep. lt eastern side is formed b'e very.low N.' coast, the perticuler of whi:h were not' distinguished, for it Coast. is lined by an intricate elnstr of islahds that we could not, having but one aneh)r,' penetrate among. ' In the entnmee is Muiron Island, and two others,' h'and' i; and within the self they are too numerous. to distinguish: all. the outer ones have been assigned correct psitions to, as have all be- tweeu Exmouth Self and Dampier's .Archipelago. The islets y and z are the outer ones of .the group; between which and the wester n shore there is a space of fourteen miles in extent, quite free from danger, with regular sound= ings between nine and twelve fathoms on a sandy bottom. Under the western sixore, which is the deepest, there are some bays which will afford anchorage; but the bottom is generally very rocky. In 'the neighbourhoed of the Bay of Rest, the shore is more sinuous, and.in the bay there is good anchorage in three and four fathoms, mud. Here the gulf is twelve miles across, and from three to six fathom.s deep; but the eastern side is shoal and very low. The gulf then shoelens end narrows very much; and at fifteen miles farther terminates in an inlet, or, as has been subsequently conjec- tured, a strait communicating with the sea at the' south end of the high land that forms the western side of'the gulf, and which is doubtless the identical Cloates Island that has puzzled navigators for the last eighty years. It perfectly answers the descriptions that have been given; and the only thing antinst it is the longitude; but this, like that of the Tryal Roeks, is not to be attended to. The south-west point of this !and has been named Point �Vide page

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