inutes 40
seconds, and longitude 114 degrees 46 minutes 6 seconds. They were seen
by Lieutenant Ritchie, R.N., in the command of a merchant brig, as
appears by an account published in the Sydney Gazette.

EXMOUTH GULF terminates the North-west Coast of Australia; it is
thirty-four miles wide at its entrance (between the North-west Cape and
Cape Locker) and forty-five miles deep. Its eastern side is formed by a
very low coast, the particulars of which were not distinguished, for it
is lined by an intricate cluster of islands that we could not, having but
one anchor, penetrate among. In the entrance is Muiron Island, and two
others, h and i; and within the gulf they are too numerous to
distinguish: all the outer ones have been assigned correct positions to,
as have all between Exmouth Gulf and Dampier's Archipelago. The islets y
and z are the outer ones of the group; between which and the western
shore there is a space of fourteen miles in extent, quite free from
danger, with regular soundings between nine and twelve fathoms on a sandy
bottom. Under the western shore, which is the deepest, there are some
bays which will afford anchorage; but the bottom is generally very rocky.
In the neighbourhood of the Bay of Rest, the shore is more sinuous, and
in the bay there is good anchorage in three and four fathoms, mud. Here
the gulf is twelve miles across, and from three to six fathoms deep; but
the eastern side is shoal and very low. The gulf then shoalens and
narrows very much; and at fifteen miles farther terminates in an inlet,
or, as has been subsequently conjectured, a strait communicating with the
sea at the south end of the high land that forms the western side of the
gulf, and which is doubtless the identical Cloates Island that has
puzzled navigators for the last eighty years. It perfectly answers the
descriptions that have been given; and the only thing against it is the
longitude; but this, like that of the Tryal Rocks, is not to be attended
to.

(*Footnote. Vide below.)

The south-west point of this land has been named Point Cloates until its
insularity shall be determined, when, for the sake of Geography, the name
of CLOATES ISLAND should be restored. At the bottom of the south-eastern
side of Exmouth Gulf the land is so low and the islands so numerous, that
it was in vain that we attempted to examine its shores, which was also
rendered still more difficult and dangerous to persevere in doing, from
our losses o