North Coast: Torres' Strait] INTRODUCTION 
xxvii 
1792. 
west; and a third bore N. i8 3 W. five miles. The latitude of the Bligh and 
anchorage was g° 41' south, and longitude 142 0 24' east. 
A fresh gale from south-east did not allow the Providence and 
Assistant to proceed onward for three days. In the mean time, the 
passage between the reefs to the N. W., was sounded by the boats ; 
and found to contain about 5 fathoms, regularly, upon hard ground. 
They were also sent to examine the passage round the southern 
reefs ; and this being deeper, with a superior bottom, it was chosen 
as the preferable route. 
Sept. 16. The vessels passed to windward of the southern reef; 
and steered south-westward, as it trended, in from 7 to 5 fathoms 
water, until half past noon; when they anchored in latitude io° 3', 
and longitude, by time-keeper, 142 0 1 4'. The sole direction in which 
the eye could range without being obstructed, was that whence the 
vessels had come; every where else the view was arrested by rocks, 
banks, and islands. The most extensive of these, was Banks' 
Island, extending from S. 14 0 E. to 62° W., two or three leagues; 
with a high hill upon it named Mount Augustus, which bore S. 4 0 E. :* 
Another large island, named Mulgrave's, extended from behind the 
last to a cluster of rocks, whose extreme bore W. if N. The 
nearest land, bearing S. 24°E., one mile and a half, was the north- 
westernmost of three small isles; and to this, the second lieutenant 
was sent, for the purpose of taking possession of all the islands 
seen in the Strait, for His Britannic Majesty George III., with the 
ceremonies used on such occasions : the name bestowed upon the 
whole, was Clarence's Archipelago. 
North Possession Island was found to be little else than a mass of 
rocks surrounded by a reef ; but it was covered with a variety of 
* This mountain, in latitude 10° 12' south, longitude 142° 13' east, was seen by 
captain B%h from the Bounty's launch, and marked in his chart, {Voyage, 8f C . p. 220.) 
It appears to be the same island indistinctly laid down by captain Cook, in latitude 10° 10' 
longitude t4io \a>, „_ r i • „> r , . , 
11 ' and ' also, one of those, to which the term Hoge Landt is applied 
m Thevenot's chart of 1663 
