MOUNTNORRIS BAY extends between Cape Cockburn and Cape Croker, it is twenty-eight miles wide, and twenty-three deep. It contains several islands, and is also fronted by a group, of which New Year's Island, the latitude of whose centre is 10 degrees 55 minutes, and longitude 133 degrees 0 minutes 36 seconds, is the outermost; the others are named Oxley, Lawson, McCluer, Grant, Templer, and Cowlard. They are straggling, and have wide and apparently deep channels between them. Between New Year's and McCluer's Islands, the channel is nearly eight miles wide and eighteen and nineteen fathoms deep. A reef extends off the north-west end of the latter island for nearly three miles, and the ground is rocky and shoal for some distance off the north-east end of Oxley's Island. Grant's Island is higher than the others, which are merely small woody islets, the centre is in 11 degrees 10 minutes. At the north-east end of Mountnorris Bay is MALAY BAY which is four miles wide and six deep; it affords good anchorage in four and five fathoms in the centre: as it offered no other inducement, we did not land upon any part of it. Between Valentia Island and Point Annesley, the channel is more than a mile wide and four fathoms deep. VALENTIA ISLAND has a reef off its north point, and another off its south-east point, each about a mile in extent.
COPELAND ISLAND is small and wedge-shaped, its summit is in latitude 11 degrees 28 minutes, and longitude 132 degrees 43 minutes; four miles and a quarter West-North-West from it is a covered sandbank having nine feet water near its edge; it was not quite certain whether it was joined to the land or not, from which it is distant two miles and a half.
On the western side of the bay there is a strait two miles wide separating Croker's Island from the main; it is ten or eleven miles in length, and is navigable since the Malay fleet were observed to pass through it.
CROKER'S ISLAND is twenty-one miles and a quarter from north to south, and from two to five broad, its northern extremity is in 10 degrees 58 minutes 30 seconds latitude, and 132 degrees 34 minutes 10 seconds longitude; about three-quarters of a mile within it there is a remarkable rocky knob: its south extreme is in 11 degrees 19 1/4 minutes.
PALM BAY, on its western side, is an excellent anchorage in the easterly monsoon; it is four miles and a half wide, and nearly three deep. The shore is rocky for a mile off, and the south point has a rocky shoal projecting to the West-North-West for a mile and a quarter.
DARCH'S ISLAND is separated from Croker's Island by a navigable strait two miles wide; near the reef at the north-east end we had six fathoms, but in mid-channel the depth was as much as eleven fathoms. A considerable reef projects off the east end for more than a mile. The island is about two miles and three-quarters long, and is thickly wooded; its north point is in latitude 11 degrees 7 minutes 30 seconds.
RAFFLES BAY forms a good port during any season; it is seven miles deep, and from two to three broad: beyond High Point the depth is not more than three fathoms and a half. The anchorage is however quite safe.
The bay to the eastward of Point Smith, which has a reef extending from it for nearly a mile, has a shoal opening at its bottom of very little importance. At the north-east end of the bay, separated from the point by a channel a mile wide, and more than five fathoms deep, is a small sandy island, with a reef extending for a mile off its north end.
PORT ESSINGTON, the outer heads of which, Vashon Head and Point Smith, are seven miles apart, is an extensive port, thirteen miles and a quarter deep, and from five to three wide; independent of its Inner Harbour, which, with a navigable entrance of a mile wide, is five miles deep and four wide. The port is not only capacious, but has very few shoals or dangers in it.
On the western side, off Island Point, there are some rocks, and also a reef projects for a mile off the bluff point that forms the east head of Knocker's Bay. The western side of the entrance to Inner Harbour, is also rocky and shoal for two-thirds across, but near the opposite point* the depth is thirteen fathoms.