Colony, and is even yet more familiar to those engaged in trade than the more general and proper appellation of Western Australia.
The first land usually made by vessels on the West coast of Australia is Rottnest (i.e., Rat-nest) island. This is of irregular shape, having its greatest length on the transverse axis, from W. to E., t.e., from Cape Vlaming to Ft. Phillip, 7½ miles in length, and being from Ft. Parker to North Point, 2½ miles in breadth; it is 10 miles from the coast. The West point forms a small peninsula; and, on the East there are lagoons from which salt is extracted by native aboriginal convicts, who are confined on the island. Their prison, the superintendent's house, and other buildings have been erected, and a small farm is cultivated by them. There is also on the East side, on the shore of Thomson's Bay, a marine residence for the Governor of the Colony. A lighthouse stands on a hill 154 feet high, the lanthorn being 211 feet above the sea, and the light visible 21 miles. To the South of the island, in a hue on the main axis of elevation, two miles from its Eastern extremity, a series of rocks and reefs extends for seven miles to Carnac, a rocky islet, and is continued from thence for two miles to Garden Island, which has its greatest length of 5½ miles to within one mile of John's point to the North of Cape Peron, from which the mainland is continuous to the East and North, thus forming apparently an extensive and sheltered harbor 17 miles in length from North to South, The Southern portion, Cockburn Sound, is indeed a spacious basin, 8 miles long by 3½ wide, having 7 fathoms water within less than a cable's length of the East shore, but it is rendered inaccessible from the North by Parmelia bank, stretching from Woodman's Point to Carnac, which, although it
