170 
A VOYAGE TO 
[Norik Coast, 
180 < 2 . 
December. 
and West Islands to be smaller points of it. There are two indents 
or bights marked between the points, which may correspond to the 
openings between the islands ; but I find difficulty in pointing out 
which are the four small isles laid down to the west of Cape Van- 
derlin ; neither does the line of the coast, which is nearly W. S. W. 
in the old chart, correspond with that of the outer ends of the 
islands, and yet there is enough of similitude in the whole to show 
the identity. Whether any change have taken place in these shores, 
and made islands of what were parts of the main land a century and 
a half before, — or whether the Dutch discoverer made a distant and 
cursory examination, and brought conjecture to aid him in the con- 
struction of a chart, as was too much the practice of that time, — it 
is perhaps not now ..possible to ascertain ; but I conceive that the 
great alteration produced in the geography of these parts by our sur- 
vey, gives authority to apply a name which, without prejudice to the 
original one, should mark the nation by which the survey was made;: 
and in compliment to a distinguished officer of the British navy, 
whose earnest endeavours to relieve me from oppression in a sub- 
sequent part of the voyage demand my gratitude, I have called this 
cluster of islands Sir Edward Pellew’s Group. 
The space occupied by these islands is thirty-four miles east 
and west, by twenty-two miles of latitude ; and the five principal 
islands are from seven to seventeen miles in length. The stone 
which seems to form the basis of the group is a hard, close-grained 
sand stone, with a small admixture of quartz, and in one or two 
instances it was slightly impregnated with iron ; calcareous, or coral 
rock was sometimes found at the upper parts, but the hard sand 
stone was more common. Where the surface is not bare rock, it 
consists of sand, with a greater or less proportion of vegetable soil, 
but in no case did I see any near approach to fertility ; yet all the 
larger islands, and more especially the western side of Vanderlin’s, 
are tolerably well covered with trees and bushes, and in some low 
places there is grass. 
