In latitude 16 degrees 46 minutes, and longitude 121 degrees 50 minutes 30 seconds, the French have placed a reef, BANC DES BALEINES; which we did not approach near enough to see.

Between Capes Baskerville and Berthollet, is CARNOT BAY; it is six miles deep, and backed by low land.  The bottom of the bay was not distinctly seen, but from the appearance of the land behind the beach, it is not improbable that there may be a rivulet falling into it.

At POINT COULOMB, in latitude 17 degrees 21 minutes, where there is a range of dark red cliffs, the coast commences to present a more verdant and pleasing appearance than to the north:  the interior rises to an unusual height, and forms a round-backed hill, covered with trees:  it reminded us of the appearance of the country of the north coast, and is so different from the rugged and barren character of the Islands of Buccaneer’s Archipelago as to afford an additional ground for our conjecture of the insularity of this land.  The red cliffs extend for four miles to the southward of Point Coulomb, and are then superseded by a low coast, composed alternately of rocky shores and sandy beaches.

CAPE BOILEAU is seventeen miles to the south of Point Coulomb; here the shore trends in and forms a bay fifteen miles wide and six deep:  the south head is the land of Point Gantheaume, which is composed of sandhills very bare of vegetation, as was also the character of the interior.  From Point Gantheaume, in latitude 17 degrees 53 minutes, the coast trends to the South-East for about fifteen miles, where it was lost to view in distance:  the extreme was a low sandy point, and appeared to be the south extremity of the land.  The space to the south of this, which appeared to be a strait, insulating the land to the north as far as Cape Leveque, is nine miles wide.  The south shore trends to the westward to Cape Villaret, on which there is a remarkable hillock, in latitude 18 degrees 19 minutes 5 seconds, and longitude 122 degrees 3 minutes 45 seconds.

The space between the Cape and Point Gantheaume was called ROEBUCK BAY.  It is here that Captain Dampier landed, in the year 1688.

Three miles to the south of the hillock on Cape Villaret, are two lumps, which at a distance appeared like rocks.  Cape Latouche-Treville has a small hummock near its extremity, in latitude 18 degrees 29 minutes, and longitude 121 degrees 50 minutes 50 seconds; to the eastward of it, there is a shallow bay open to the northward.

The depth of water in the offing of Roebuck Bay, is between eight and twelve fathoms; the bottom is sandy, and there are in some parts sandbanks, on which the depth decreased three fathoms at one heave, but the least water was eight fathoms.  The flood-tide sets to the eastward, towards the opening, and at an anchorage near Cape Latouche-Treville, the ebb ran to the North-East:  but the tides were at the neaps, and did not rise more than sixteen feet.  Captain Dampier, at the springs, found it flow thirty feet, which tends unquestionably to prove the opening behind Roebuck Bay to be considerable, even if it does not communicate with that behind the Buccaneer’s Archipelago.