132 NORTHMOST AUSTRALIA 



sailing. Some fires were seen on HAMMOND ISLAND, but Wednesday 

 Island showed no sign of habitation except for gigantic ant-hills 

 which were at first taken for huts. On the following morning 

 (2nd November), the course was shaped westward and west-south- 

 westward, with Wednesday and Hammond Islands to the south 

 and the NORTH-WEST REEF on the north. This passage is now 

 officially known as PRINCE OF WALES CHANNEL. (In modern charts 

 the passage between Wednesday and Horn Islands, named FLINDERS 

 PASSAGE, is that used by Flinders in his later voyage [1803] in the 

 " Cumberland.") 



HAMMOND ISLAND was so named by Captain Edwards on his 

 voyage in the boat of the wrecked " Pandora." 



South-west of Hammond Island, Flinders distinguished another, 

 which he named GOOD ISLAND, after the gardener of the expedi- 

 tion, and the anchor was dropped near its west end in the afternoon. 

 Flinders landed with the botanists and took bearings, and remarked 

 that " the stone is granite . . . and . . . porphyry, and in one place I 

 found streaks of verdegrease, as if the cliffs above had contained 

 copper ore." This is the earliest recorded indication of " MINERAL 

 WEALTH " in Queensland territory. The adjacent Hammond 

 Island, nearly a century later, was found to contain auriferous 

 quartz associated with copper pyrites, and there can be no doubt 

 that Flinders' observation on Good Island was correct and his 

 deduction justifiable. 



From Good Island, BOOBY ISLAND was visible, and the " Investi- 

 gator " was therefore in the open sea west of Torres Strait. 



The voyage was resumed on ^rd November, with the immediate 

 object of " getting in with the mainland south of the Prince of 

 Wales Island." The course taken was mainly to the south-west 

 between the LARPENT and GERARD BANKS, and must have been a 

 very hazardous one, from the shallow soundings shown on modern 

 charts. Once clear of the shoals, the vessel's head was turned to 

 the south, and at noon she was west of the WALLIS ISLANDS 

 and between the RED and WALLIS BANKS. Flinders wrote : ' 

 " Between Cape Cornwall [southern point of Prince of Wales Island] 

 and the low mainland ... is the opening called in the old Dutch 

 chart SPEULT'S RIVER, but which Captain Cook, who sailed through 

 it, named Endeavour Strait." 



Some of the charts prior to Tasman's conveyed the idea that 

 the Van Speult Revier was identical with the passage afterwards 

 named Endeavour Strait, but Carstenszoon's diary (i 3th May, 1623) 

 clearly points out that it was the (or a) mouth of a fresh-water river 

 draining the land, and as such it was identified by Asschens in the 

 "Buijs" in 1756. 



After clearing the WALLIS ISLANDS, further progress to the 

 south was barred by the INSKIP BANKS, and the " Investigator " 



1 Terra Australis, II, p. 122. 



