131 
Gulph of Carpentaria .] TERRA AUSTRALIS. 
be a full mile in width ; but a spit from the south side runs so far 1902. 
across, that there is probably no access to it, unless for rowing boats : Friday 12.’ 
its latitude is 15 0 12' south, corresponding with a bight in the Dutch 
chart to the south of the second Water Plaets ; and the variation, 
with the ship’s head in the meridian, was 4 0 43' east. Our course 
southward was continued at two or three miles from the shore, in 3 
to 4 fathoms ; but at. eleven o’clock, the sea breeze having then set 
in, the depth diminished suddenly to 2 fathoms; and in tacking, the 
ship stirred up the mud. 
The latitude at noon was 15 0 25' 20”, and longitude 14T 32'; 
at one o’clock we steered S. S. W., with the whale boat a-head, and 
carried from 4 to 6 fathoms until seven in the evening, when the 
stream anchor was dropped about four miles from the shore, in 5 
fathoms, muddy bottom. This depth had diminished at daylight to Saturday is. 
3f fathoms, after a tide had been setting nine hours to the N. by E. ; 
and for the first time upon this coast it had run with some strength, 
the rate being one mile an hour. 
We were again under way soon after five o’clock; and at six, 
being then four miles from the land, and steering S. S. W., a lagoon 
was seen from the mast head, over the front beach. It has doubtless 
some communication with the sea, either by a. constant, or a tem- 
porary opening, but none such could be perceived. The latitude 
15 0 53' corresponds with that of Nassau River in the old chart ; and 
from the examples already had of the Dutch rivers here, it seems 
probable that this lagoon was meant. A few miles further south, 
the shoal water obliged me to run westward, out of sight of land 
from the deck ; and even at the mast head, the tops of the trees were 
only partially distinguished ; yet the depth was no more than from 
4 to 6 1 fathoms. At noon, when our latitude was 16 0 24' 29" and. 
longitude 14T 14 j, trees were visible from the deck at N. 7°° 
and from thence to S. 50° E. ; the nearest part, whence a smoke arose, 
being distant seven or eight miles, and the depth of water 4 fathoms. 
The slight projection here is probably one of those marked in the old 
