is examination of the Gulf
of Carpentaria during this monsoon, but, when upon the western side of
the gulf, he thought that the fine weather then experienced might be
occasioned by the monsoon's blowing over the land. In January and
February the monsoon is at its strength, but declines towards the end of
the latter month, and in March becomes variable, with dark, cloudy, and
unsettled weather; the wind is then generally from the South-West, but
not at all regular.

The current sets with the wind, and seldom exceeds a knot or a knot and a
half per hour; between Capes Wessel and Van Diemen it is not stronger,
and its course in the easterly monsoon, when only we had any experience
of it, was West: the strength is probably increased or diminished by the
state of the wind.

The tides are of trifling consequence; the flood comes from the eastward,
but rarely rises more than ten feet, or runs so much as a mile and a half
per hour. High water takes place at full and change at Liverpool River,
and Goulburn Island at six o'clock, at the entrance of the Alligator
Rivers in Van Diemen's Gulf, at 8 hours 15 minutes, and at the south end
of Apsley Strait at 3 hours 25 minutes.* The flood-tide comes from the
eastward, excepting when its course is altered by local circumstances;
the rise is not more than eleven feet at the springs.

(*Footnote. In St. Asaph's Bay, Lieutenant Roe found high-water take
place at full and change at 5 hours 45 minutes; and in King's Cove at 5
hours 15 minutes; at the latter place it rose fourteen feet.)

The variation of the compass in this interval is scarcely affected by the
ship's local attraction. Off Cape Wessel it is between 3 and 4 degrees
East; at Liverpool River about 1 3/4 degrees East, at Goulburn Islands 2
degrees East, and off Cape Van Diemen, not more than 1 1/2 degrees East.

The dip of the south end of the needle at Goulburn Island was 27 degrees
32 1/2 minutes.

When the survey of the Gulf of Carpentaria was completed by Captain
Flinders, his vessel proved to be so unfit for continuing the examination
of the north coast, that it was found necessary to return to Port
Jackson; and as he left it at the strait that separates Point Dale from
Wessel's Islands, which is called in my chart BROWN'S STRAIT, he saw no
part of the coast to the westward of that point, nor did he even see Cape
Wessel, the extremity of the range of Wessel's Islands, which terminate
in latitude 10 degrees 59 1/4 minu