charts. It will thence appear that the employment
of fifteen days in running along the coast, more than would probably have
been required had I kept at a distance, was not without some advantage to
geography and navigation.

(Atlas, Plate II.)

At Cape Leeuwin, the largest _Ile St. Alouarn_ of D'Entrecasteaux was
seen to be joined to the main, and to form the south-western extremity of
Leeuwin's Land, and of Terra Australis. The coast from thence to King
George's Sound was more accurately investigated than the French admiral
had an opportunity of doing and his omission of soundings supplied.
Captain Vancouver's chart is superior to that of the French from Cape
Chatham to the Sound; but that officer's distance from some parts
prevented him from seeing them correctly. In the Sound, no particular
advantage will be derived from the new survey, the plan given by
Vancouver being sufficiently correct for nautical purposes, with the
exception of the bar to Oyster Harbour, over which he had marked
seventeen feet, but where thirteen now appeared to be the greatest depth.
From King George's Sound to Point Hood the coast had been very
indistinctly, and sometimes not at all seen by Vancouver; but I found it,
speaking generally, to be laid down by D'Entrecasteaux with accuracy,
though the bights in the land are marked somewhat too deep, from his
distance not allowing the low beaches to be always distinguished. These
trifling inaccuracies were remedied, the passages between Bald and
Doubtful Islands and the main land opposite to them ascertained to be
safe, and the omission of soundings along the coast remedied.

In Doubtful Island Bay the French chart does not give the north-western
part sufficiently deep; but the coast from thence to the Archipelago of
the Recherche, as also the reefs and rocks, were well distinguished,
better perhaps than by me; but the usual want of soundings, with the
exception of some distant ones by Vancouver, still continued.
D'Entrecasteaux's chart appeared to be excellent in the western part of
the archipelago, and good in the positions of the islands on the
outskirts; so that I have, in some cases, borrowed from it. With respect
to the inner islands and the main coast, it was necessarily defective,
from the French ships having sailed round the archipelago, and not
through the middle of it as I did in the Investigator. Here, my survey,
though far from complete in the details, will afford much new informati