On board the sloop, the leak had, in the mean time, been found to arise from a plank having started from the timbers, at three or four streaks above the keel; and the open space being filled up with oakum from the inside, very little water came in; I therefore left the river and the Glass Houses for a future examination, and proceeded up the bay with the afternoon’s flood.  On the 18th at noon, we had passed two low islands surrounded with shoals, and were at anchor in 6 fathoms, abreast of a third.  The south point of the opening from Moreton Bay then bore N. 77 deg.  E., ten miles; and the observed latitude being 27 deg. 271/4’, confirmed the observation taken without side on the 14th.  Next day, we beat up against a southern wind to a sixth island; but the shoals then became more numerous, and the channels between them so narrow, that it was very difficult to proceed further.

The latitude observed upon the sixth island was 27 deg. 35’, being thirty-four miles south of Cape Moreton at the entrance of the bay.  Above this island, the east and west shores, from being nine or ten miles apart, approach each other within two miles, and the space between them takes the form of a river; but the entrance was too full of shoals to leave a hope of penetrating by it far into the interior, or that it could be of importance to navigation.  Under this discouragement and that of a foul wind, all further research at the head of Glass-house Bay was given up; and I returned on board to seek in Pumice-stone River for a place to stop the leak, and the means of visiting the Glass Houses.  On the 22nd, we got into the river after many difficulties, arising principally from shoals in the entrance, which could only be passed at high water.  The place chosen for laying the sloop on shore was on the east side, five miles above Point Skirmish, at a small beach, close to which the depth was 7 fathoms.

July 25.  The leaky plank being secured, and the sloop restowed and completed with water, we proceeded two miles further up the river, amongst mangrove islets and muddy flats.  Next morning I landed on the west side, as far above the sloop as the boat could advance; and with my friend Bongaree and two sailors, steered north-westward for the Glasshouse peaks.  After nine miles of laborious walking, mostly through swamps or over a rocky country, we reached the top of a stony mount, from whence the highest peak was four miles distant to the north-west.  Three or four leagues beyond it was a ridge of mountain, from which various small streams descend into Pumice-stone River; the principal place of their junction seeming to be at a considerable extent of water which bore N. 80 deg.  E., and was about six miles above the sloop.  Early on the 27th, we reached the foot of the nearest Glass House, a flat-topped peak, one mile and a half north of the stony mount.  It was impossible to ascend this almost perpendicular rock; and finding no marks of volcanic eruption, we returned to the boat, and to the sloop the same evening.