Some judgment may be formed of the epoch when these conflagrations happened from the magnitude of the growing trees; for they must have sprung up since that period.  They were a species of eucalyptus, and being less than the fallen trees, had most probably not arrived at maturity; but the wood is hard and solid, and it may thence be supposed to grow slowly.  With these considerations I should be inclined to fix the period at not less than ten, nor more than twenty years before our arrival.  This brings us back to La Perouse.  He was in Botany Bay in the beginning of 1788; and if he did pass through Torres’ Strait, and come round to this coast, as was his intention, it would probably be about the middle or latter end of that year, or between thirteen and fourteen years before the Investigator.  My opinion is not favourable to this conjecture; but I have furnished all the data to enable the reader to form his own judgment upon the cause which might have prostrated the woods of these islands.

The soil of that part of Kangaroo Island examined by us was judged to be much superior to any before seen, either upon the south coast of the continent or upon the islands near it, with the exception of some portions behind the harbours of King George’s Sound.  The depth of the soil was not particularly ascertained; but from the thickness of the wood it cannot be very shallow.  Some sand is mixed with the vegetable earth, but not in any great proportion; and I thought the soil superior to some of the land cultivated at Port Jackson, and to much of that in our stony counties in England.

Never perhaps had the dominion possessed here by the kangaroo been invaded before this time.  The seal shared with it upon the shores, but they seemed to dwell amicably together.  It not unfrequently happened that the report of a gun fired at a kangaroo near the beach brought out two or three bellowing seals from under bushes considerably further from the water-side.  The seal, indeed, seemed to be much the most discerning animal of the two; for its actions bespoke a knowledge of our not being kangaroos, whereas the kangaroo not unfrequently appeared to consider us to be seals.

The latitude of the landing place near Kangaroo Head from an observation in the artificial horizon, was 35 deg. 43’ 0” south; and the longitude of our anchorage by timekeepers, 137 deg. 58’ 31” east.  This last, being deduced from observations only four days after the proof had of the time keepers having gone correctly since leaving Port Lincoln, should be as accurate, or very nearly so, as the longitude of that port.

The variation observed from two compasses on board, with the head south-westward, was 6 deg. 31’ east; but when the ship swung to a tide coming from east-north-east, the change in the bearings of different objects showed the variation to be about 4 deg. less.  The true variation I deduce to be 4 deg. 13’ east; which is an increase upon what was observed on the west side of Cape Spencer, of 2 deg.; although the distance be no more than twenty-four leagues, and the previous increase from Cape Catastrophe had been almost nothing.  It seems probable that the existence of magnetic bodies in the land to the north-westward, and perhaps also in Kangaroo Island and Cape Jervis, was the cause of this change in the direction of the needle.