Broad Sound.} 
TERRA AUSTRALIS. 
71 
shore should be kept nearest a-bord. A ship may then reach Upper 
Head without difficulty, and lie there in perfect safety from all winds, 
at two-thirds of a mile off ; but cannot go higher up the sound with- 
out risk of grounding on the banks. From half flood to half ebb, 
landing is easy at Upper Head, and it is perhaps the sole place on 
the main possessing that advantage ; every where else the shore is 
very low, fronted with mud banks, and covered, in some places miles 
deep, with interwoven mangroves, amongst which the tide flows at 
high water. 
The stone of Upper Head, and apparently of all the hills in its 
neighbourhood, is granitic; whilst that of Long Island and West 
Hill approach nearer to porphyry. At the inner entrance of Thirsty 
Sound the points are mostly composed of an earth, which is not 
heavy, is sometimes red, but more frequently white, or mixed ; and 
of a consistence not harder than ochre. 
Long Island, though covered with grass and wood, is stony 
and incapable of ordinary cultivation. On the main land, the low 
parts between the mangroves and the hills seemed to be of a tolera- 
bly good soil; and according to the report of some of the gentlemen, 
who made an excursion at the back of Upper Head, the vallies 
there produce good grass and appeared fertile. There seems, indeed, 
to be a considerable extent of land about Broad Sound and on the 
peninsula between it and Shoal- water Bay, which, if not calculated to 
give a rich return to the cultivator of wheat, would support much 
cattle, and produce maize, sugar, and tobacco; and cotton and coffee 
would grow upon the more rocky sides of the hills, and probably 
even upon Long Island. Should it ever be in contemplation to make 
an establishment in New South Wales within the tropic, in aid of 
Port Jackson and the colonies to the southward, this neighbourhood 
would probably be chosen ; and the great rise of tide presents advan- 
tages which might be some time turned to account in ship building. 
On the west side of the sound, near the Flat Isles, the rise at spring 
tides is not less than thirty, and perhaps reaches to tliirty-five feet. 
1802. 
September. 
Tuesday 28. 
