12 
A VOYAGE TO 
[ East Coast. 
1802. 
July. 
Saturday 31. 
August. 
Sunday 1. 
The coast lies nearly north, and except Sandy Cape, appears to be 
mostly of free stone, which I have not found to produce any effect 
upon the needle ; and what is remarkable, on comparing my obser- 
vations with those of captain Cook, it appeared that little or no 
change had taken place in the variation, during thirty-two years ; for 
wherever our observations were taken with the ships heads in the 
same direction, there the same variation was obtained to a few minutes, 
Within Break-sea Spit, an amplitude gave the variation 
when corrected, 7 0 25' east ; and one taken at the anchorage near 
Sandy Cape, but uncorrected, the direction of the ship’s head being 
unknown, 7 0 57' east. There is little doubt that on bringing the land 
to the eastward of the ship, the variation was diminished at least 
half a degree : the stone of Sandy Cape is granitic. 
In the morning of August 1 , the wind was from the south- 
ward, and we steered across Hervey’s Bay, towards a sloping hum- 
mock on the west side, where my examination in the Norfolk had 
terminated. The soundings increased from 7, gradually to 18 
fathoms, and afterwards decreased till half past four in the after- 
noon ; when the sloping hummock bore S. 2 0 E. eight miles, and we 
had no more than 3^ fathoms near some dry banks and breakers, 
which extend out three miles from two shallow inlets in the coast. 
At dusk the anchor was let go in 6± fathoms, mud and sand ; the 
shallow inlets to the south being distant 6 miles, and the sloping 
hummock bearing S. 17 0 E. In captain Cook’s chart, the width of 
Hervey’s Bay is fifty-nine miles, which had appeared to me too great 
when here in the Norfolk ; and I now made the distance, from the 
north-west extremity of Sandy Cape to a low point running out from 
the hummock, to be forty three miles by the time keepers. Such 
errors as this are almost unavoidable without the aid of these in- 
struments, when sailing either along a coast which lies nearly 
on the same parallel, or where no land is in sight to correct the 
longitude by bearings. From Port Jackson to Sandy Cape, captain 
Cook’s positions had been found to differ from mine, not more than 
