ef,
which is always more elevated than the interior parts, and commonly level
with high-water mark. From the gradual subsiding of the sea, or perhaps
by a sudden convulsion of nature, this bank may have attained its present
height above the surface; and however extraordinary such a change may
appear, yet, when it is recollected that branches of coral still exist
upon Bald Head, at the elevation of four hundred or more feet, this
supposition assumes a great degree of probability; and it would further
seem that the subsiding of the waters has not been at a period very
remote, since these frail branches have yet neither been all beaten down
nor mouldered away by the wind and weather.

If this supposition be well founded, it may, with the fact of no hill or
other object having been perceived above the bank in the greater part of
its course, assist in forming some conjecture of what may be within it;
which cannot, as I judge in such case, be other than flat, sandy plains,
or water. The bank may even be a narrow barrier between an interior and
the exterior sea, and much do I regret the not having formed an idea of
this probability at the time; for notwithstanding the great difficulty
and risk, I should certainly have attempted a landing upon some part of
the coast to ascertain a fact of so much importance.

At the termination of the bank and of the second range of cliffs the
coast became sandy, and trended north-eastward about three leagues; after
which it turned south-east-by-east, and formed the head of the _Great
Australian Bight_, whose latitude I make to be 31 deg. 29' south, and
longitude 131 deg. 10' east. In the chart of admiral D'Entrecasteaux the head
of the Great Bight is placed in 31 deg. 36' and 131 deg. 27'; but I think there
is an error at least in the latitude, for the admiral says, "At daybreak
I steered to get in with the land; and the wind having returned to
south-east, we hauled our starbord tacks on board, being then four or
five leagues from the coast. At _eleven o'clock_ the land was seen ahead
and we veered ship in 32 fathoms, fine sand."* The latitude observed at
noon, as appears by the route table, was 31 deg. 38' 58"; and if we suppose
the ship, lying up south-south-west, to have made 2' of southing in the
hour, as marked in the chart, she must have been in 31 deg. 37' at eleven
o'clock; which is within one mile of the latitude assigned to the head of
the bight, where the shore curves to the south-e