The surveying operations necessary to perfect the chart of this neighbourhood, afforded ample employment during the day.  The weather being dull, with passing rain, and squalls, the view I had anticipated enjoying from the summit of the island was quite destroyed.  Like Cape Upstart and Lizard Island it is a granite mass.  Dead coral was found on the western side, ten feet above high-water mark, a fact which in some measure supports what I have stated in connection with the raised beach on Cape Upstart.  A low sandy tongue of land forms the South-West extreme, leaving a narrow passage between it and the main.  This flat is covered with brushwood, gumtrees, and a few palms.  The observations were made on this point, and the results were as follow:  latitude 12 degrees 37 minutes 30 seconds South, longitude 11 degrees 16 3/4 minutes East of Port Essington.

July 10.

The morning broke with the same dull, gloomy weather, the wind fresh at South-East and continued thus during the day, slightly diversified by a few passing rain squalls.  Soon after daylight we were again on our passage, the cloudy weather enabling us to make out the Eastern reefs, which at high-water are covered, and consequently difficult to be seen in that direction in the morning.  They front Quoin and Forbes Islands, remarkable rocky lumps, more so, however, from the extreme lowness of those in their vicinity, than from their own magnitude.  The latter was found to be 340 feet high.  A North-West by North course from Restoration brought us to Piper Islands.  The soundings were from 11 to 13 fathoms, with a greater proportion of sand in the quality of the bottom than had been before noticed.

SIR EVERARD HOME’S ISLANDS.

Passing between them and reefs H and I also between Young Island (an elevated reef, with one small mangrove growing on the highest part) and reef M, we hauled up North-East by North round the north end of the latter, to weather Sir Everard Home’s Islands, a low group connected by shoal water and extending about four miles from Cape Grenville.  We passed midway between them and Haggerston’s Islands, a square lump 240 feet high.

COCKBURN ISLANDS.

Sir Charles Hardy’s and the Cockburn Isles are also conspicuous objects in this neighbourhood, particularly the former, which is visible from outside the Barrier, and thus forms a leading mark for ships making their way through these reefs.

In the evening the anchor was dropped about a mile from the north side of the Bird Isles in ten fathoms, a sudden degree from fifteen, just before standing in West-South-West to the anchorage.  Five miles South-East by East from these isles, we passed close to the position of a patch of shoal water, according to the chart:  its presence, however, was not detected, the depth at the time being nineteen fathoms.  The only additions made to the chart during the day were a few soundings, besides increasing the number