side are white, as if composed of chalk, and the soil in general seemed to be sandy; yet the island was pretty well covered with wood, principally eucalyptus and casuarina.  No water could be found; and as the ship’s hold was becoming very empty, I returned on board, after observing the latitude, with the intention of running over to the main in search of it.  But on comparing the longitude observed by lieutenant Flinders with that resulting from my bearings, a difference was found which made it necessary to repeat the observation on shore; and as this would prolong the time too near dusk for moving the ship, Mr. Thistle was sent over with a cutter to the mainland in search of an anchoring place where water might be procured.

The latitude of a small beach on the north end of Thistle’s Island was found to be 34 deg. 56’; and longitude, by the time-keepers corrected, 136 deg. 31/2’, agreeing with thirty sets of lunar observations reduced to a place connected with this by land bearings.  The strongest tides set past the ship at the rate of two miles an hour, from the north-north-east and south-south-west; the latter, which appeared to be the flood, ceasing to run at the time of the moon’s passage over the meridian.  It rose seven feet and a half by the lead line in the night of the 20th; and there were two tides in the twenty-four hours.

At dusk in the evening the cutter was seen under sail, returning from the main land; but not arriving in half an hour, and the sight of it having been lost rather suddenly, a light was shown and lieutenant Fowler went in a boat, with a lanthorn, to see what might have happened.  Two hours passed without receiving any tidings.  A gun was then fired, and Mr. Fowler returned soon afterward, but alone.  Near the situation where the cutter had been last seen he met with so strong a rippling of tide that he himself narrowly escaped being upset; and there was reason to fear that it had actually happened to Mr. Thistle.  Had there been daylight, it is probable that some or all of the people might have been picked up; but it was too dark to see anything, and no answer could be heard to the hallooing or to the firing of muskets.  The tide was setting to the southward and ran an hour and a half after the missing boat had been last seen, so that it would be carried to seaward in the first instance; and no more than two out of the eight people being at all expert in swimming, it was much to be feared that most of them would be lost.*

[* This evening, Mr. Fowler told me a circumstance which I thought extraordinary; and it afterwards proved to be more so.  Whilst we were lying at Spithead, Mr. Thistle was one day waiting on shore, and having nothing else to do he went to a certain old man, named Pine, to have his fortune told.  The cunning man informed him that he was going out a long voyage, and that the ship, on arriving at her destination, would be joined by another vessel.  That such