COASTS OF AUSTRALIA. 
179 
perfect sterility. The coast is lined with a I 822 . 
barrier of rocks, on which the sea was breaking Jan. 20. 
high, with a roar that was heard on board, 
although our distance from the shore was at 
least three miles. 
The warmth of the weather now began ra- 
pidly to increase ; the thermometer at noon 
ranged as high as 79°. 
At one o’clock Cape Inscription, the north- 
westernmost point of Dirk Hartog’s Island, was 
distinguished, and the sea-breeze veered as far 
as S.W.b. W. which was two points more westerly 
than we had hitherto had it. At two o’clock the 
brig passed round the cape, and, as there was 
an appearance of good shelter in the bay to the 
eastward of it, we hauled in, and at half past 
three o’clock, anchored in twelve fathoms fine 
gravelly soft sand; the west point of Dirk 
Hartog’s Island (Cape Inscription) bearing 
N. 82° W., and the low sandy point that forms 
its north-east end S. 53° W., at a mile and a half 
from the shore. 
As we hauled round the cape, and were pass- 
ing under the lee of the land, the breeze became 
so suddenly heated, by its blowing over the arid 
and parched surface of the coast, that my sea- 
weed hygrometer, which had been quite damp 
since we left Rottnest Island, was in ten minutes 
N 2 
