1802.
April.
Friday 16.
compass steady, they were again taken. Differences always took place; and without any exception the bearings required a greater allowance of variation to the right after tacking, when the head was westward, than before, when eastward; agreeing with the differences so frequently found in the azimuths and amplitudes, which had always been to show a greater east or less west variation when the head was on the west side of the meridian. The least average difference in any one of five sets of bearings was 4¼°, the greatest 7°, and the mean 5¾°; and according to the system adopted in correcting the variations, explained in the Appendix No. II. to the second volume, the mean difference arising from the five changes in the direction of the ship's head, should be 5° 35′.
The eastern wind died away at noon of the 16th, and the ship scarcely had steerage way until after midnight; a breeze then sprung up from the north-westward, and we steered north-east to make the land near Cape Buffon.Saturday 17. At half past seven the cape bore N. 1° W. seven miles, and was ascertained to be in nearly 37° 36′ south, and 140° 10′ east. There is a bight in the coast on its north side, where the land was not distinctly seen all round, owing probably to its being a low beach. At nine o'clock we bore away southward, keeping at the distance of two or three miles from the shore. It was the same kind of hummock-topped bank as before described; but a ridge of moderately high hills, terminated to the southward by a bluff, was visible over it, three or four leagues inland; and there was a reef of rocks lying in front of the shore. At noon, two larger rocks were seen at the southern end of the reef, and are those called by the French, the Carpenters. They lie one or two miles from a sandy projection named by them Cape Boufflers; but here a prior title to discovery interferes.
On arriving at Port Jackson, I learned, and so did captain Baudin, that this coast had been before visited. Lieutenant (now captain) James Grant, commander of His Majesty's brig Lady Nelson, saw the above projection, which he named Cape Banks, on Dec. 3, 1800; and