162 
A VOYAGE TO 
1802. 
December. 
Sunday 1 
[North CoaSL 
at noon. In the morning they were set forward, and altitudes of 
the sun taken to find their errors from the time under this meridian. 
The moon and planet Mars had been observed in the night, from 
which, and the noon’s observation following, the latitude of the 
anchorage was ascertained to be i6'° jN ; and a projection on the 
west side of the R. Van Alphen, which had been the nearest shore 
at the preceding noon, was now set at S. 6^° E. From these data 
and from the log, I ascertained the difference of longitude, from 
half past ten in the morning of the 11th, when the last observations 
for the time keepers had been taken, to be 2 o' 18" ; and that this 
anchorage was in i37°37' 18" east. Theerrors from mean Greenwich 
time were thence obtained ; and they were carried on as before, with 
the rates found at Sweers' Island, which it was to be presumed, had 
undergone no alteration from the letting down, since none had 
been caused by former accidents of the same kind. An amplitude 
taken when the ship’s head was W. N. W., gave variation 3 0 46', or 
i° 47' east, corrected to the meridian; being nearly a degree less 
than on the east side of the River Van Alphen, when the land lay to 
the west of the ship. 
Soon after seven o’clock, the anchor was weighed ; and the 
breeze being atN. W., we stretched off till noon, when the observed 
latitude from both sides was 16* 2' 1 1'', and the land was nine or 
ten miles distant ; but the only part visible from the deck was 
the range of low hills, two or three leagues behind the shore. We 
then tacked to the westward, and kept closing in with the coast until 
sunset ; at which time the corrected variation was i° 47' east, as on 
the preceding evening, and the following bearings were taken. 
Eastern extreme of the shore - - S. 31 0 E. 
Small opening, dist. 4 or 5 miles, - - S. 54 W. 
Western extreme of the main, a sandy head, N. 75 W. 
Beyond the head, much higher land than any we had passed in the 
gulph, was seen from aloft as far as N. W. by N. This I expected 
was the Cape Vanderlin of the old chart; and if so, there ought to 
