care to keep the shore on either side well on board, for there is a reef which dries at low water and lies very near the mid-channel, right off the first sandy cove on the east shore; this reef is pretty broad athwart, as well as up and down the channel, and shoals very gradually:  The marks for it are, the outer north point and inner south point touching, Green Point will then be on with a remarkable notch in the back land.  To avoid it to the eastward, pass the inner south head a cable’s length from it, and when you open any part of the sandy beach of Camp Cove, haul short in for it until you bring the inner north head and inner south head on with each other; that mark will carry you up in five and six fathom:  But if you cannot weather the reef, tack and stand into Camp Cove, which shoals gradually.  If you pass to the westward of the reef, steer in for Middle Cape, which is steep too, then steer up for the next point above it on the same side; when you are that length, you may take what part of the channel you please, or anchor where you like.

It flows Full and Change a quarter past eight. 
Rises 4 6 Neap Tide. 
Rises 6 0 Spring Tide.

Chapter XV.

The great advantage of a scientific eye over that of the unlearned observer, in viewing the productions of nature, cannot be more strongly exemplified than by the present state of the natural history of Botany Bay, and its vicinity.  The English who first visited this part of the coast, staid there only a week, but having among them persons deeply versed in the study of nature, produced an account, to which the present settlers, after a residence of near eleven months when the last dispatches were dated, have been able to add but very little of importance.  The properties and relations of many objects are known to the philosopher at first sight, his enquiries after novelty are conducted with sagacity, and when he cannot describe by name what he discovers, as being yet unnamed, he can at least refer it to its proper class and genus.  The observation of unskilful persons is often detailed by trivial resemblances, while it passes by the marks which are really characteristic.  Governor Phillip, in one of his letters, remarking the prodigious variety of vegetable productions then before his eyes, laments, that among all the people with him there happens not to be one who has any tolerable knowledge of botany.  This circumstance is perhaps less to be regretted than a deficiency in any other branch of natural knowledge.  The researches of some gentlemen among the first voyagers were particularly directed to botanical discoveries, and a work which is now preparing, in a style of uncommon accuracy and elegance by one of the most illustrious of them, will probably discover that there was little left undone, even in their short stay, towards completing that branch of enquiry.  Of quadrupeds the whole stock contained in the country appears to be confined