Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia — Vol. 2: Performed between the years 1818 and 1822King, Philip Parker
History
Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia — Vol. 2: Performed between the years 1818 and 1822
King, Philip Parker
Australia -- Description and travel; Natural history -- Australia
A few miles to the westward is PORT KEATS. TREE POINT, in latitude 13
degrees 59 minutes 20 seconds, longitude 130 degrees 34 minutes, the
eastern head of the port, is surrounded by a reef, which extends from it
for more than three miles. The west side has also a reef, but of much
more considerable size, stretching to the northward of Cape Hay for
fifteen miles; near its extremity there is a patch of dry rocks,
occupying an extent of two miles. The channel within the heads is from
two to four miles wide, and has anchorage in it between six and seven
fathoms, mud. The port gradually contracts as it approaches the narrow
mouth of the inlet to a mile and a half; it then trends to the south for
six miles, where it is divided into two arms, that run up for six or
seven miles more to the foot of a range of wooded hills, one of which is
MOUNT GOODWIN. The western side of the inlet is occupied by a bank of
clay, that dries at low water. At about three miles within the narrow
entrance on the western side, there is an inlet, and above this the
anchorage is good, the bottom being of clay, in which is mixed a small
ironstone pebble: between the inlet and the narrows, the bottom is deep
and rocky.
Between Cape Hay, in latitude 14 degrees 1 minute 30 seconds, and
longitude 130 degrees 27 minutes 30 seconds, and POINT PEARCE, in
latitude 14 degrees 28 minutes 30 seconds, longitude 130 degrees 17
minutes 15 seconds, the coast is still low, and was only seen at a
distance. Off the latter point there is a reef which does not extend to a
greater distance than a mile and a half.
To the south of Point Pearce there is a very extensive opening, which bad
weather and other circumstances did not allow of being examined. It is
nearly thirty miles wide, and the depth across between eight fathoms and
twenty. The south shore is lined by a considerable reef extending for
seven miles from the beach. The land was very indistinctly seen at the
back, but, in one part, there was a space of more than eighteen miles, in
which nothing was visible. The strength of the tide, the bottom being
sandy instead of mud, as in other parts of the neighbourhood, and the
rocky overfalls on either side of the entrance bespeak this opening to be
of considerable size and importance.
The shore to CAPE DOMETT was very indistinctly seen. It occupies an
extent of forty-five miles, and is fronted by extensive reefs, which
project for twenty-three miles; the north extremity of the shoal water is
twenty-six miles, nearly due west from Cape Pearce. It terminates with a
narrow point, and then trends in to the South-West towards the coast.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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