Heads of Port Phillip, we had crossed Bass
Strait,* and anchored in Port Dalrymple, on the northern coast of Van
Diemen's Land, and remained there sufficiently long to obtain rates for
the chronometers, and connect it by meridian distance with William's
Town, and Sydney.** The two lighthouses of Banks' Strait only now
remained unvisited, that on the Kent Group, and another on Cape Otway,
having been left to Lieutenant Yule.

(*Footnote. For every information required by navigators passing through
Bass Strait, I would refer to Discoveries in Australia, with an account
of the Coasts and Rivers explored and surveyed during the Voyage of
H.M.S. Beagle, in the years 1837 to 1843 by J. Lort Stokes, Commander,
R.N., and to the Admiralty chart by Captain Stokes. On this subject I
find a manuscript note by Captain Stanley: "Stokes has mentioned in his
chart that there is little or no tide in Bass Strait. Such may be the
case, but I have invariably found a very strong current, depending both
as to force and direction upon the prevailing winds. On one occasion,
during a westerly gale, it set to the eastward with a velocity of at
least three knots per hour. I mention this circumstance, as from Captain
Stokes' remarks, strangers might be led to suppose there were no currents
in the Strait, and neglect to take the usual precautions.")

(**Footnote. It is unnecessary to give separately the various meridian
distances obtained by the Rattlesnake and Bramble, as these will be
found, with the various circumstances affecting their value, in the
Appendix.)

GOOSE ISLAND.

March 3rd.

With the help of a strong westerly wind we reached Goose Island at 5
P.M., and a party from the ship landed immediately after anchoring. The
island is one and a half miles in length, by one in greatest breadth. The
rock is a coarse sienite, forming detached bare masses and ridges, but
none of considerable height. In the hollows the soil appears rich, dark,
and pulverulent, with much admixture of unformed bird-guano. The scanty
vegetation is apparently limited to a grass growing in tussocks, and a
few maritime plants. The ground resembles a rabbit warren, being
everywhere undermined by the burrows of the mutton-bird, a dark
shearwater (Puffinus brevicaudus) the size of a pigeon. A person in
walking across the island can scarcely avoid frequently stumbling among
these burrows, from the earth giving way under his feet, and I was told
by one of the residents