ntially improved during our stay at King George's
Sound on the South-west Coast, previous to our arrival upon the
North-west Coast, at the commencement of the first voyage of His
Majesty's cutter the Mermaid.

Although the reader may inform himself, from Captain King's relation of
the several voyages, of the opportunities that were afforded me in
forming my collections of plants, still it appears necessary, in this
place, to take a general retrospective view of those parts of the coasts
under examination, whereon my researches were made, adverting, at the
same time, to the prevalent unfavourable seasons for flowering plants,
during which it should seem the survey of the North-west Coast could
alone be effected with safety.

During the progress of the survey of the southern extreme of the
North-west Coast (at which part Captain King commenced his examinations,
in 1818) I landed in Exmouth Gulf, then upon one of the islands of
Dampier's Archipelago, at the Intercourse Islands, and on Malus Island;
but the results of these several excursions (in some of which ample time
was afforded me) did by no means answer my expectations; herbaceous
plants being for the most part dead, and the few (hard woody) shrubs
scarcely bearing fructification: disadvantages arising, in fact, from the
extreme barrenness of the land, and more particularly from the prevalent
droughts of the season, previous to the change of the monsoon, which soon
afterwards took place, obliging us to quit the North-west Coast
altogether; the remaining periods of the voyage being employed in the
examination of certain parts of the North Coast.

We again reached the North-west Coast, in the month of September of the
following year, resuming the survey at its northern extremity, under the
most flattering views, and with a favourable season for the prosecution
of that primary object of the voyage. Between the meridians of 125 and
129 degrees, on the parallel of 14 degrees, although a large proportion
of the vegetation was for the most part destroyed by the long established
droughts, the number of specimens of plants bearing fructification,
gathered at Port Keats, Vansittart Bay, Port Warrender, and especially in
Cambridge Gulf (where we spent ten days) was nevertheless considerable
and highly interesting, belonging, however, almost wholly to established
genera of which Grevillea and Acacia were the most striking. The breaking
up of the monsoon at length again obliged