0 
Encounter Bay.} TERRA AUSTRALIA ^ 
captain Baudin in the afternoon ; and in consequence of our meeting u» 
here, I distinguish it by the name of Encounter Bay. The sue- Friday 9. 
ceeding part of the coast having been first discovered by the French 
navigator, I shall make use of the names in describing it which he, 
or his countrymen have thought proper to apply ; that is, so far as 
the volume published enables me to make them out; but this volume 
being unaccompanied with charts, and containing few latitudes and 
longitudes by which the capes and bays can be identified, I must be 
excused should any errors be committed in the nomenclature. 
There was no wind, from noon to two o'clock ; and it appeared 
by the lead that the ship was drifted to the west-north-west, pro- 
bably by a flood tide. On a breeze springing up from the south- 
ward, we stretched in for the shore; and at six in the evening it was 
four miles distant, being sandy and generally very low ; but there 
were several hillocks upon it high enough to be seen four or five 
leagues from a ship's deck, and one of them, more bluff than the 
rest, and nearly destitute of vegetation, bore N. 17° E. Next day at Saturday 10. 
noon our situation was within three miles of the land, but very 
little advanced beyond that of the preceding day; our latitude being 
35° 4>9j' ' and the bluff hummock in sight bearing N. 22 0 W. 
A tide or current setting along the shore appeared to retard 
us considerably, for at sunset we were not so much as two miles 
from the noon's place ; the hummock then bore N. 25 0 W., and the 
furthest part of the coast south-east-by-east from the mast head. 
An amplitude taken in the morning, with the ship's head west- 
by-south, gave 5 0 11' east variation ; and in the afternoon, when the 
land was only three miles distant and the head south-east, azimuths 
with the same compass gave o° 50' west. These, corrected to the 
meridian in the mode 1 have adopted, will be severally 1° 57' and 
1° 30' east ; and the mean i° 44'. The variation had therefore m 
decreased considerably since leaving Kanguroo Island, contrary to the 
natural order; which proves that the quick increase on passing 
Yorke's Peninsula, was owing to some peculiar attraction, either in 
