20 U.S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 239 



boulders and fragments lying about and above them. The bay- 

 bottom is sandy with a depth of about six to twelve fathoms, 

 deepening as the larger bay [False Bay] is approached, in which 

 there is a depth of from twenty to forty fathoms, with a coarse 

 sandy or gravelly bottom containing ledges of rock. 



[About three weeks were spent collecting in this area; Stimpson 

 made a three-day trip to Capetown before the squadron was 

 put under sailing orders on November 5.] 



December 23. S. Lat. 35°55'; E. Long. 151 °10'. At noon the coast 

 of New Holland, or Australia, was in sight to the westward. It 

 had the appearance of low land, forming a succession of clumps 

 along the horizon, with considerable uniformity of height. 



December 25. S. Lat. 33°50'; E. Long. 151°52'. Sunday — 



Today is Christmas, but we are disappointed in our hopes of 

 eating our Christmas dinner ashore. The entrance of Port 

 Jackson, with the lighthouse was, however, visible in the after- 

 noon, when it unfortunately fell calm, preventing us from reaching 

 the shore this day. 



December 26. At daylight we commenced beating in to the mouth of 

 the harbor, which we entered at eight o'clock and at nine we 

 anchored below Garden Island, and about 2% miles from the 

 town of Sydney. The harbor was one of the most beautiful I 

 have ever seen, the verdure descending to the water's edge. It 

 is so land locked and its waters are so smooth, that it presents 

 rather the appearance of a pond of fresh water than an inlet of 

 the sea. The depth of the water is everywhere nearly the same 

 (from nine to twelve fathoms) there being only one shoal in the 

 harbor (the Sow and Pigs, near the entrance) so that for the 

 purpose of commerce it is one of the finest in the world. In the 

 afternoon I took a boat and examined the shores. The rocks of 

 the first and second sub-regions were inhabited by several species 

 of crabs and a great variety of littoral mollusks of the genera 

 Trochus, Mododonta, Nerita, Purpura, Littorina, Siphonaria and 

 Patella, there being in all about eight species of these genera, all 

 very common, and all of about equal size (the Littorina excepted), 

 three-fourths of an inch in diameter. 



December 27. This day was spent in the city of Sydney, which I 

 found to be a large place of 60,000 inhabitants, and having fine 

 buildings, the private residences even being built of sandstone. 

 I visited the shop of Mr. Wilcox, natural history dealer, whom I 

 found to be a man of information, and I spent several hours very 

 agreeably in examining the curious forms of mammalia and birds 

 peculiar to Australia, of which Mr. W. had a very full collection. 



