Account of Macquarie,.Harbour. 
17 
Art. III. Account of Macquarie Harbour. By T. G. 
Lempriere, Esq., D.A.C.G. 
[Continued from Vol. I., page 375.] 
The heads of Macquarie Harbour are situated in latitude 
42° 14' south, and longitude 145° 10' east. From the 
heads an estuary extends for a distance of about six and 
twenty miles in a south-easterly direction : it is here 
terminated by the Gordon River meeting it, although it 
branches off to the southward into Birch’s Inlet, and to 
the northward into Kelly’s Basin. 
On the hill called “ De Witts,” at the back of the 
Pilot’s Station at the South Head, stood a signal staff, 
on which, upon the appearance of a vessel, a flag was 
hoisted, and it remained there until she had passed the bar. 
This answered two purposes,—that of informing those 
on board that the bar was passable, and the people at the 
settlement that a vessel was coming in. This staff is 
twenty-one miles from the settlement; and it was amusing 
to see with what eagerness the officers used to strain their 
eyes in attempting to see the always wished for signal. 
Indeed, we were so often on short allowance of some 
part of our rations, besides the anxiety naturally felt to 
hear from absent friends, or the news from head-quarters, 
that the announcement of the signal-flag being up always 
caused a great deal of excitement amongst every class of 
the free inhabitants, and, we may add, of the prisoners ; 
for each man, perhaps, hoped that his own name might 
appear amongst those ordered for removal to Hobart 
Town. 
After rounding the point, the visitor is struck with the 
splendid scenery before him. Near the bows of the vessel 
the sea is breaking over the bar (upon which there is 
only eleven feet of water), leaving a small smooth space 
of some seventy yards for a passage: before him is an 
VOL. II, no. vi. c 
