the evening.” Captain Cook gave this pretty little spot the name of Norfolk 
Island ; it is situated in 29° 2' 30" S. and 168° 16' E. On Monday 17th they 
made the coast of New Zealand. 
On February 14th, 1788, Lieutenant Ball in the “ Supply,” with a party 
on board, was sent off from Port Jackson, then newly occupied, to settle on the 
garden island. 
The Governor of New South Wales, Arthur Phillip, appointed Philip 
Gidley King, second lieutenant of his Majesty’s ship “ Sirius,” to the office of 
Superintendent and Commandant of Norfolk Island. With King went “ a 
small detachment, consisting of one subaltern officer and six marines, a very 
promising young man who was a midshipman, a surgeon (Jamison), two men 
who understood the cultivation and dressing of flax, with nine men and six 
women convicts.” 
King’s instructions were given “ at Head Quarters in Port Jackson, New 
South Wales, this 12th day of February, 1788.” 
The above is a short account of the discovery, and first settlement, of 
Norfolk Island. It afterwards became the place to which the worst criminals 
were sent. 
Included with Norfolk Island are the two smaller islands, “ Phillip and 
Nepean on the south, and Bird Islands, or Rocks, seven or eight in number 
on the northern shore.” 
“ Norfolk Island, of an irregular quadrangular form, is about seven miles 
in length from east to west, by four in breadth from north to south, and contains 
about 8,960 acres. The average height of the island is from 300 to 400 feet 
above the level of the surrounding ocean, although the land is generally higher 
on the northern side. In this direction lofty perpendicular cliffs bound the shore, 
and Mount Pitt, with its double summit, rises to an elevation of 1,050 feet above 
the level of the sea. The surface is irregular and composed wholly of long, 
narrow and very steep ridges of hills with deep gullies, which are as narrow 
at the bottom as the hills are at the top. 
The soil is very uniform, consisting of a red, porous, ferruginous earth, 
originating in the decomposition of volcanic rocks. This friable earth alternates 
with white concretionary marl, both studded with boulders of porphyritic rock, 
gradually disintegrating. Pumice is found abundantly on the coast. In fact, 
the whole geological character of the island is indicative of volcanic agency. 
The only metal found on the island is iron, in the mineral forms of red and 
yellow ochre. 
