SAILING DIRECTIONS. 
3G5 
Australia; it is thirty-four miles wide at its entrance, (be- A. 
tween the North-west Cape and Cape Locker,) and forty- Sect. IV. 
five miles deep. Its eastern side is formed by a very low N. West 
• “ C/Oftst 
coast, the particulars of which were not distinguished, for it 
is lined by an intricate cluster of islands that we could not, 
having but one anchor, penetrate among. In the entrance 
is Muiron Island, and two others, h and i ; and within the 
gulf they are too numerous to distinguish: all the outer 
ones have been assigned correct positions to, as have all be- 
tween Exmouth Gulf and Dampier's Archipelago. The 
islets y and z are the outer ones of the group; between 
which and the western shore there is a space of fourteen 
miles in extent, quite free from danger, with regular sound- 
ings between nine and twelve fathoms on a sandy bottom. 
Under the western shore, which is the deepest, there are 
some bays which will afford anchorage; but the bottom is 
generally very rocky. In the neighbourhood of the Bay of 
Rest, the shore is more sinuous, and in the bay there is good 
anchorage in three and four fathoms, mud. Here the gulf is 
twelve miles across, and from three to six fathoms deep ; 
but the eastern side is shoal and very low. The gulf then 
shoalens and narrows very much ; and at fifteen miles farther 
terminates in an inlet, or, as has been subsequently conjec- 
tured, a strait communicating with the sea at the south end 
of the high land that forms the western side of the gulf, and 
which is doubtless the identical Cloates Island that has 
puzzled navigators for the last eighty years. It perfectly 
answers the descriptions that have been given ; and the only 
thing against it is the longitude ; but this, like that of the 
Tryal Rocks, is not to be attended to. 
The south-west point of this land has been named Point 
* Vide page 367. 
