1821.  August 2nd and 3rd.  By seventeen sets of lunar distances with the sun, containing eighty-five sights with the sextant, the sun being to the west of the moon, the longitude of Sight Point, in Prince Regent’s River, was found to be 124 degrees 41 minutes 15.3 seconds, or of Careening Bay 124 degrees 50 minutes 8.1 seconds.

The mean is the longitude of the observatory 125 degrees 0 minutes 46 seconds East.)

The CORONATION ISLANDS separate York Sound from Brunswick Bay, and are situated in front of Port Nelson.  The group consists of seventeen or eighteen islands, besides numerous rocky islets.  On the largest island are two remarkable peaks; the easternmost is in 14 degrees 59 minutes, and longitude 124 degrees 56 minutes 5 seconds.  The island is eight miles long, and from four to two wide; the others are from three to one mile in length; they are covered with vegetation, and the larger islands are well clothed with trees.  The great rise of the tide would render this part of the coast of importance, was it not for the wretched state of the country, and the unproductiveness of its soil, which are great drawbacks upon the advantage of the tide’s unusual rise.  It is high water at full and change in Port Nelson at twelve o’clock, as it is also in Montagu Sound.

Beyond the Coronation Islands there is a string of small, rocky islands extending for sixteen miles:  the westernmost is Freycinet’s Group; the principal island of which Captain De Freycinet has described as resembling an inverted bowl; and, from this description, we had no difficulty in finding it out; it is in latitude 15 degrees 0 minutes 30 seconds, and longitude 124 degrees 32 minutes 40 seconds.  Among the other islands we distinguished the islets Colbert, Keraudren, and Buffon.  On the last there is a small, grassy, peaked hillock, in latitude 14 degrees 55 minutes 25 seconds, and longitude 124 degrees 43 minutes 20 seconds.

We passed out to sea between Freycinet’s Group and Keraudren; and within one mile and a half of the latter had eighteen fathoms:  it appeared, from the colour of the water, to have a reef projecting to the westward.

BRUNSWICK BAY is at the back of these islands, and extends from CAPE BREWSTER, in latitude 15 degrees 6 minutes 10 seconds, and longitude 124 degrees 55 minutes 5 seconds, which terminates Port Nelson, to Point Adieu.  It is an extensive bay or sound, and is about twenty miles in extent, with good anchorage all over it.  The coast is here very much indented by rivers and bays; among which may be particularized Prince Regent’s River, Hanover Bay, and Port George the Fourth.