3)2 
1803. 
August. 
Thurs. 25. 
A VOYAGE TO [ East Coast 
thing of the sand bank to which we were all indebted for our lives ; 
and where the greater part of the officers and people were to re- 
main in expectation of my return from Port Jackson. In the annexed 
view of it, Mr. Westall has represented the corals above water, to 
give a better notion of their forms and the way they are seen on the 
reefs ; but in reality, the. tide never leaves any considerable part of 
them uncovered. The length of the bank is about one bundled 
and fifty fathoms, by fifty in breadth, and the general elevation three 
or four feet above the common level of high water ; it consists of 
sand apd pieces of coral, thrown up by the waves and eddy tides on 
a patch of reef five or six miles in circut ; and being nearly in the 
middle of the patch, the sea does no more, even in a gale, than send 
a light spray over the bank, sufficient, however, to prevent the 
growth of any other than a few diminutive salt plants. On its north 
and north-west sides, and at one or two cables length from the reef, 
there is from 18 to 2,5 fathoms on a bottom of coral sand ; where 
the Bridgewater might have anchored in safety, so long as the wind 
remained between S. W, and E. S. E., and received every person 
from the wrecks, with provisions for their subsistence. The latitude 
of the bank was found to be 22* 11' south, and longitude by the 
time keeper No. 520, reduced up from an observation on the after- 
noon preceding the shipwreck, 155 0 3'; but this was afterwards 
found to require correction. This excellent time keeper did not 
seem to have been affected by the violent motion of the ship ; but 
No. ,543 stopped, and Arnold’s watch No. 1736 was spoiled by the 
salt water. 
In searching for something wherewith to make a fire on the 
first night of our landing, a spar and a piece of timber, worm eaten 
and almost rotten, were found and burnt. The timber was seen by 
the master of the Porpoise, who judged it to have been part of the 
stern post of a ship of about four hundred tons ; and I have thought 
it might, not improbably, have belonged to La Boussole or L’ 4 stro- 
labe. Monsieur de la Perouse, on quitting Botany Bay, intended to 
