56 ADMIRALTY SOUND. Feb 1827. 
their dogs, and all. the furniture. Seeing us proceed to the 
southward, with the apparent intention of sailing down the 
inlet, they motioned to us to go to the north, repeatedly calling 
out ‘ Sherroo, sherroo,’ and pointing to the northward ; which 
we thought intimated that there was no passage in the direction 
we were taking. 
At noon, I landed to observe the latitude, and take bearings 
down the Sound to the S.E., at the bottom of which was a 
hill, standing by itself, as it were, in mid-channel. The view 
certainly excited hopes of its being a channel ; and as we had 
begun to calculate upon reaching Nassau Bay in a few days, 
we named this hill, Mount Hope. 
The point on which we landed was at the foot of a high 
snow-capped hill, called by us Mount Seymour; whence, had 
not the Indians been near, I should have taken bearings. 
We sailed south-eastward, close to the south shore, until the 
evening; when from the summit of some hills, about three 
hundred feet above the sea, we had a view down the Sound, 
which almost convinced us it would prove to be a channel. 
The rock at this place differed from any we had seen in the 
Strait. 'The mountains are high, and evidently of clay-slate ; 
but the point, near which we anchored, is a mass of hard, and 
very quartzose sand-stone, much resembling the old red sand- 
stone formation of Europe, and precisely like the rock of Goul- 
burn Island, on the north coast of New Holland.* 
The following morning (23d), we proceeded towards Mount 
Hope, while running down to which some squalls passed over, 
clouding the south shore, and as we passed Parry Harbour it 
bore so much the appearance of a channel, that we stood into 
it; but the clouds clearing away soon exposed the bottom to 
our view, where there seemed to be two arms or inlets. In the 
south-eastern arm, the shores were covered with thick ice (like the 
bottom of Ainsworth Harbour, to the west of Parry Harbour, 
where an immense glacier slopes down to the water’s edge). The 
south-west arm appeared to be well sheltered, and if it affords 
a moderate depth of water, would be an excellent harbour. 
* King’s ‘ Australia,’ vol. i. p. 70; also vol. ii, pp. 573, 582, and 613. 
