* 
Towards Timor.] TERRA AUSTRALIS. . 249 
New Year’s Isle is a bed of sand mixed with broken coral, 1803 * 
thrown up on a coral reef. It is four or five miles in circumference, Saturday 12. 
and the higher parts are thickly covered with shrubs and brush 
wood ; but much of it is over-run with mangroves, and laid under 
water by the tide. Fresh prints of feet on the sand showed that the 
natives had either visited it very lately, or were then upon the island ; 
turtle also had been there, but their traces were of an old date. The 
reef extends about a mile off, all round ; we had 22 fathoms very 
near the outer edge, and saw no other danger. Broken land was 
perceived to the southward, probably the inner isles marked by lieu- 
tenant M c Cluer ; and six or seven leagues to the S. W. was a part 
of the main, somewhat higher but equally sandy, which we traced 
above half a degree to the westward. I made the latitude of the 
island to be io° 55' south, and longitude by time keeper corrected 
133 0 4/ east ; being 3' more south and 8' less east than Mr. M c Cluer’s 
position. The variation of the compass, from azimuths taken twenty 
leagues to the east of New Year’s Isle, was i° 55' east, with the 
ship’s head W. N. W.; and at thirteen leagues on the west side, 
i° 20' with the head N. W. ; these being corrected to the meridian, 
will be o° 23' and o° 12' east. The tide ran strong to the N. W. 
whilst it was ebbing by the shore, so that the flood would seem to 
come from the westward ; whereas in the neighbourhood of Cape 
Arnhem the flood came mostly from the opposite direction : 
whether this change were a general one, or arose from some opening 
to the S. E. of New Year’s Isle, our knowledge of thex:oast was too 
imperfect to determine. 
We had continued to have soundings, generally on a muddy 
bottom, from the time of quitting Wessel’s Islands ; nor did they 
vary much, being rarely less than 25, and never more than 35 fa- 
thoms. On the 13th at noon we had 34 fathoms, being then in 1a 3 Sunday 13. 
41' south and 132 0 40' east, and the coast still in sight to the south- 
ward. The winds then hung in the southern quarter, being some- 
times S. W., and _at others S. E., but always light ; and I steered 
vol. 11. K k 
