clviii INTRODUCTION. [Prior Discoveries. 
Flinders The direction of the river, from where the sloop was lying to this 
an i798. S ' P art > is nearly S. S. W. ; but it then winds round the Crescent Shore, 
and runs E. S. E. My uppermost station was upon a hill near the 
water side, at the commencement of this new reach ; and from 
thence the river appeared, at the distance of a mile and a half, to re- 
open out its banks, and to turn more southward. In an eastern 
direction, across the wide part, there were three ridges of hills, 
and beyond them some blue peaks and caps of distant mountains, 
which I judged to be the same we had seen from Cape Portland ; and 
amongst which the source, or some of the sources of this river most 
probably arose. The distance of these mountains concurred with 
the strength of the tides and the depth of water to indicate, that, 
at the Crescent Shore, the larger half of the river still remained to 
be explored.* 
The morning of Nov. 12 was foggy and calm. We rowed the 
sloop down with the assistance of the ebb tide, to Round-head Bay, 
and anchored in 3^ fathoms. At high water, the anchor was again 
weighed ; and at dusk, having had a breeze, we reached the five- 
fathom bank in Long Reach, near Watering Cove. From the upper 
end of Whirlpool Reach to Point Rapid, I went a-head in the boat 
and examined all the creeks and gullies on the western shore, for 
watering places. There were drains of fresh water down some of 
these, but in none, not even in Glen Bight, was there any accessible 
to boats. 
Novi 13, we beat down with the ebb tide to Middle Island, and 
then steered across the basin for the Middle Arm, which was yet 
totally unexplored ; but after many ineffectual attempts to find a 
passage over the shoals, we came to, in 5 fathoms, near the Shag 
Rocks, and I went to examine the arm with the boat. From 
* The chart will shew from later examinations, how far the river is navigable, and 
whence its different sources are derived. 
