(Atlas, Plate XVII, View 9.)

The reader will pardon me the observation that Mr. Thistle was truly a valuable man, as a seaman, an officer, and a good member of society.  I had known him, and we had mostly served together, from the year 1794.  He had been with Mr. Bass in his perilous expedition in the whale-boat, and with me in the voyage round Van Diemen’s Land, and in the succeeding expedition to Glass-house and Hervey’s Bays.  From his merit and prudent conduct he was promoted from before the mast to be a midshipman, and afterwards a master in his Majesty’s service.  His zeal for discovery had induced him to join the Investigator when at Spithead and ready to sail, although he had returned to England only three weeks before, after an absence of six years.  Besides performing assiduously the duties of his situation, Mr. Thistle had made himself well acquainted with the practice of nautical astronomy, and began to be very useful in the surveying department.  His loss was severely felt by me; and he was lamented by all on board, more especially by his mess-mates, who knew more intimately the goodness and stability of his disposition.

Mr. William Taylor, the midshipman of the boat, was a young officer who promised fair to become an ornament to the service, as he was to society by the amiability of his manners and temper.  The six seamen had all volunteered for the voyage.  They were active and useful young men; and in a small and incomplete ship’s company, which had so many duties to perform, this diminution of our force was heavily felt.

The latitude of our anchorage in Memory Cove was 34 deg. 58’ south, and longitude 135 deg. 561/2’ east.  The variation observed on the binnacle by lieutenant Flinders, when the ship’s head was S. by W., was 2 deg. 38’ east, or corrected for one point of western deviation from the magnetic meridian, 2 deg. 0’ east.  In the bearings taken on the eastern side of the high land behind the cove, the variation appeared to be 3 deg. 20’, but upon the summit it was 1 deg. 40’, being less than on board the ship.

The soil of the land round Memory Cove, and of Cape Catastrophe in general, is barren; though the vallies and eastern sides of the hills are covered with brushwood, and in the least barren parts there are small trees of the genus eucalyptus.  The basis stone is granite, mostly covered with calcareous rock, sometimes lying in loose pieces; but the highest tops of the hills are huge blocks of granite.  Four kangaroos, not larger than those of Thistle’s Island, were seen amongst the brushwood; and traces of natives were found so recent, that although none of the inhabitants were seen, they must have been there not longer than a day before.  Water does consequently exist somewhere in the neighbourhood, but all our researches could not discover it.