1803.
August.
Thurs. 25.
thing of the sand bank to which we were all indebted for our lives; and where the greater part of the officers and people were to remain in expectation of my return from Port Jackson. In the annexed view of it, Mr. Westall has represented the corals above water, to give a better notion of their forms and the way they are seen on the reefs; but in reality, the tide never leaves any considerable part of them uncovered. The length of the bank is about one hundred and fifty fathoms, by fifty in breadth, and the general elevation three or four feet above the common level of high water; it consists of sand and pieces of coral, thrown up by the waves and eddy tides on a patch of reef five or six miles in circut; and being nearly in the middle of the patch, the sea does no more, even in a gale, than send a light spray over the bank, sufficient, however, to prevent the growth of any other than a few diminutive salt plants. On its north and north-west sides, and at one or two cables length from the reef, there is from 18 to 35 fathoms on a bottom of coral sand; where the Bridgewater might have anchored in safety, so long as the wind remained between S.W. and E.S.E., and received every person from the wrecks, with provisions for their subsistence. The latitude of the bank was found to be 22° 11′ south, and longitude by the time keeper No. 520, reduced up from an observation on the afternoon preceding the shipwreck, 155° 3′; but this was afterwards found to require correction. This excellent time keeper did not seem to have been affected by the violent motion of the ship; but No. 543 stopped, and Arnold's watch No. 1736 was spoiled by the salt water.
In searching for something wherewith to make a fire on the first night of our landing, a spar and a piece of timber, worm eaten and almost rotten, were found and burnt. The timber was seen by the master of the Porpoise, who judged it to have been part of the stern post of a ship of about four hundred tons; and I have thought it might, not improbably, have belonged to La Boussole or L'Astrolabe. Monsieur de la Pérouse, on quitting Botany Bay, intended to
