Very little has been said upon the islands or their productions, or upon the various traces of native inhabitants and of former visitors found in this, and in former boat excursions; the observations on these heads being intended for the general and conclusive remarks upon this group.  These are now to be given; for the wooding and watering were completed on the day after my return [SUNDAY 26 DECEMBER 1802], and the ship was then ready to proceed in the examination of the Gulph.

In the old Dutch chart, Cape Vanderlin is represented to be a great projection from the main land, and the outer ends of North and West Islands to be smaller points of it.  There are two indents or bights marked between the points, which may correspond to the openings between the islands; but I find difficulty in pointing out which are the four small isles laid down to the west of Cape Vanderlin; neither does the line of the coast, which is nearly W. S. W. in the old chart, correspond with that of the outer ends of the islands, and yet there is enough of similitude in the whole to show the identity.  Whether any change have taken place in these shores, and made islands of what were parts of the main land a century and a half before—­or whether the Dutch discoverer made a distant and cursory examination, and brought conjecture to aid him in the construction of a chart, as was too much the practice of that time—­it is perhaps not now possible to ascertain; but I conceive that the great alteration produced in the geography of these parts by our survey, gives authority to apply a name which, without prejudice to the original one, should mark the nation by which the survey was made; and in compliment to a distinguished officer of the British navy, whose earnest endeavours to relieve me from oppression in a subsequent part of the voyage demand my gratitude I have called this cluster of islands SIR EDWARD PELLEW’S GROUP.

The space occupied by these islands is thirty-four miles east and west, by twenty-two miles of latitude; and the five principal islands are from seven to seventeen miles in length.  The stone which seems to form the basis of the group is a hard, close-grained sand stone, with a small admixture of quartz, and in one or two instances it was slightly impregnated with iron; calcareous, or coral rock was sometimes found at the upper parts, but the hard sand stone was more common.  Where the surface is not bare rock, it consists of sand, with a greater or less proportion of vegetable soil, but in no case did I see any near approach to fertility; yet all the larger islands, and more especially the western side of Vanderlin’s, are tolerably well covered with trees and bushes, and in some low places there is grass.