eef, and she was much shaken; but we hoped
the timbers and beams would hold together, at least until the next spring
tides, and that every thing would be got out. Of the Cato, nothing but a
few scattered fragments had remained for several days before.

Before leaving Wreck Reef, it will be proper to say something of the sand
bank to which we were all indebted for our lives; and where the greater
part of the officers and people were to remain in expectation of my
return from Port Jackson. In the annexed view of it, Mr. Westall has
represented the corals above water, to give a better notion of their
forms and the way they are seen on the reefs; but in reality, the tide
never leaves any considerable part of them uncovered. The length of the
bank is about one hundred and fifty fathoms, by fifty in breadth, and the
general elevation three or four feet above the common level of high
water; it consists of sand and pieces of coral, thrown up by the waves
and eddy tides on a patch of reef five or six miles in circuit; and being
nearly in the middle of the patch, the sea does no more, even in a gale,
than send a light spray over the bank, sufficient, however, to prevent
the growth of any other than a few diminutive salt plants. On its north
and north-west sides, and at one or two cables length from the reef,
there is from 18 to 25 fathoms on a bottom of coral sand; where the
Bridgewater might have anchored in safety, so long as the wind remained
between S. W. and E. S. E., and received every person from the wrecks,
with provisions for their subsistence. The latitude of the bank was found
to be 22 deg. 11' south, and longitude by the time keeper No. 520, reduced up
from an observation on the afternoon preceding the shipwreck, 155 deg. 3';
but this was afterwards found to require correction. This excellent time
keeper did not seem to have been affected by the violent motion of the
ship; but No. 513 stopped, and Arnold's watch No. 1736 was spoiled by the
salt water.

In searching for something wherewith to make a fire on the first night of
our landing, a spar and a piece of timber, worm eaten and almost rotten,
were found and burnt. The timber was seen by the master of the Porpoise,
who judged it to have been part of the stern post of a ship of about four
hundred tons; and I have thought it might, not improbably, have belonged
to _La Boussole_ or _L'Astrolabe_. Monsieur de la Perouse, on quitting
Botany Bay, intended to visit the so