COASTS OF AUSTRALIA. 
167 
On our return to the brig, we passed over a I 822 . 
clear sandy bottom, that would have afforded Jan. i4. 
better anchorage than where we had brought up ; 
for the vessel was not only exposed to a con- 
siderable swell, but the ground was so foul, that 
in weighing the anchor the following morning 
one of the flukes hooked a rock and broke off, 
besides which the cable was much rubbed. 
As Swan River had been very minutely ex- 
amined in Baudin’s voyage, by MM. Heirisson 
and Baily, the former an -enseigne de vaisseau, 
the latter a mineralogist, an account of which 
is fully detailed in De Freycinet’s and Peron’s 
respective accounts of that voyage^,, without 
their finding any thing of sufiicient importance 
to induce me to risk leaving the brig at an- 
chor off Rottnest Island for so long a time as 
it would necessarily take to add to the know- 
ledge of it that we already possess, I did not 
think it advisable to delay for such a pur- 
pose, and therefore, as soon as we Were un- 
derweigh, steered for the main land, and con- 
tinued to run northerly along the shore, at the 
distance of six miles from it. At noon our la- 
titude was 31° S7' 32". The coast is formed 
by sandy hillocks, or dunes,” of from one 
* See De Freycinet, p. 175, et seq., and Peron^ voL i. p. 
J78, et seq. 
