From Macquarie Strait the land trends to the westward, and north-westward to De Courcy Head, and forms but few sinuosities. POINT BROGDEN, in latitude 11 degrees 30 minutes, the only projection in this space, is remarkable for being higher than usual, and for having a range of cliffs to the southward of the point; with a solitary tree near its extremity, hence the land is rocky towards De Courcy Head, which is a cliffy projection in latitude 11 degrees 17 minutes 30 seconds; thence the shore continues rocky to Cape Cockburn, a low rocky point, with a conspicuous tree at its extremity. The point is wooded to within a short distance of the sea, as is generally the case with the shores of this coast. CAPE COCKBURN is in latitude 11 degrees 18 minutes, and longitude 132 degrees 53 minutes 5 seconds.
MOUNTNORRIS BAY extends between Cape Cockburn and Cape Croker, it is twenty-eight miles wide, and twenty-three deep. It contains several islands, and is also fronted by a group, of which New Year’s Island, the latitude of whose centre is 10 degrees 55 minutes, and longitude 133 degrees 0 minutes 36 seconds, is the outermost; the others are named Oxley, Lawson, McCluer, Grant, Templer, and Cowlard. They are straggling, and have wide and apparently deep channels between them. Between New Year’s and McCluer’s Islands, the channel is nearly eight miles wide and eighteen and nineteen fathoms deep. A reef extends off the north-west end of the latter island for nearly three miles, and the ground is rocky and shoal for some distance off the north-east end of Oxley’s Island. Grant’s Island is higher than the others, which are merely small woody islets, the centre is in 11 degrees 10 minutes.
At the north-east end of Mountnorris Bay is MALAY BAY which is four miles wide and six deep; it affords good anchorage in four and five fathoms in the centre: as it offered no other inducement, we did not land upon any part of it. Between Valentia Island and Point Annesley, the channel is more than a mile wide and four fathoms deep. VALENTIA ISLAND has a reef off its north point, and another off its south-east point, each about a mile in extent.
COPELAND ISLAND is small and wedge-shaped, its summit is in latitude 11 degrees 28 minutes, and longitude 132 degrees 43 minutes; four miles and a quarter West-North-West from it is a covered sandbank having nine feet water near its edge; it was not quite certain whether it was joined to the land or not, from which it is distant two miles and a half.
On the western side of the bay there is a strait two miles wide separating Croker’s Island from the main; it is ten or eleven miles in length, and is navigable since the Malay fleet were observed to pass through it.
CROKER’S ISLAND is twenty-one miles and a quarter from north to south, and from two to five broad, its northern extremity is in 10 degrees 58 minutes 30 seconds latitude, and 132 degrees 34 minutes 10 seconds longitude; about three-quarters of a mile within it there is a remarkable rocky knob: its south extreme is in 11 degrees 19 1/4 minutes.