The tides in the Investigator’s Road ran N. N. E. and S. S. W., as the channel lies, and their greatest rate at the springs, was one mile and a quarter per hour; they ran with regularity, but there was only one flood and one ebb in the day.  The principal part of the flood came from N. N. E.; but according to lieutenant Fowler’s remarks on shore, between the 23rd and 27th, it was high water three hours after the opposite tide had set in; or about three hours and a quarter before the moon came to the meridian.  At the Prince of Wales’ Islands, and at Coen River, it had also appeared that the tide from south-west made high water.  The time here happened between 81/2h and 111/2h at night, from the 23rd to the 27th; but whether high water will always take place at night, as it did at King George’s Sound on the South Coast, I cannot be certain.  About twelve feet was the greatest rise, which I apprehend would be diminished to eight, at the neap tides.

CHAPTER VII.

Departure from Sweers’ Island. 
South side of C. Van Diemen examined. 
Anchorage at Bountiful Island:  turtle and sharks there. 
Land of C. Van Diemen proved to be an island. 
Examination of the main coast to Cape Vanderlin. 
That cape found to be one of a group of islands. 
Examination of the islands; their soil, etc. 
Monument of the natives. 
Traces of former visitors to these parts. 
Astronomical and nautical observations.

[NORTH COAST. WELLESLEY’S ISLANDS.]

WEDNESDAY 1 DECEMBER 1802

(Atlas, Plate XIV.)

On the 1st of December we got under way, and passed the reef at the south-east end of Sweers’ Island.  I wished to run close along the north side of this, and of Bentinck’s Island, and get in with the main land to the west; but the shoal water and dry banks lying off them presented so much impediment, that we steered north-westward for land which came in sight in that direction.  At noon, the land was distant six or seven miles, and appeared to be the inner part of that great projection of the main, represented in the old chart under the name of Cape Van Diemen; but the rocky nature of the shore and unevenness of the surface were so different from the sandy uniformity of the continent, that I much doubted of its connexion.  Our situation at this time, and the bearings taken were as under: 

Latitude, observed to the north and south,           16 deg. 48’ 29”
Land of Cape Van Diemen,                N. 70 deg.  W. to 25  W.
A piece apparently separated,           N. 18  W. to 11  E.
Bentinck’s I., highest part at the north end,     S. 15  E.

A smoke was rising in the direction of Horse-shoe Island, but no land was there visible.