This bay is open to the northward, but, as the winds from that quarter are not frequent, and then only in the winter season, it may be considered as affording shelter from the prevailing winds on the coast.  The water is shoal in the head of the bay, but a good anchorage may be taken three-quarters of a mile off shore in four fathoms sandy bottom, with Point Moore bearing south 50 degrees west and a remarkable bare brown sandhill in the south-east part of the bay, bearing south 31 degrees east.  Mount Fairfax will then bear north 87 minutes east, and the north extreme of the reef from Point Moore north 50 minutes west.  Wizard Peak is not seen from this anchorage.

South of Point Moore is another bay formed by a continuation of the same reef that shelters Champion Bay from the westward; but it is quite exposed to the prevailing winds.  From Champion Bay the coast to the northward is sandy, and fronted by sandhills slightly covered with shrubs.  This description of coast continues for nearly twenty miles.  In latitude 28 degrees 25 minutes is a remarkable white sand-patch 274 feet above the sea, between two and three miles south of which is a deep ravine where there is probably a stream of fresh water.  Here the shore becomes steeper, and rises abruptly from the sea, forming downs about 300 feet high.  Native fires were seen in this neighbourhood, and the country had a more fertile appearance than in the vicinity of Champion Bay.  This part of the coast is bold too, and is free from outlaying dangers, the depth of water from two to three miles off shore being taken between 16 and 29 fathoms.  High-water at Champion Bay takes place on change days at 9 hours 30 minutes P.M. nearly, and the range is from 12 to 24 inches.  The stream of tide is not perceptible, but there is generally a current along the coast to the north-north-west from half a mile to one mile an hour.

Champion Bay appears to be the only anchorage on the coast between Swan River and Shark Bay:  it is preferable to Gage’s Road, and may at no very distant period become of importance to Western Australia in consequence of a considerable tract of fine country having lately been discovered immediately to the eastward of Moresby’s Flat-topped Range.

...

APPENDIX C.

CONTRIBUTIONS TOWARDS THE GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF THE MAMMALIA OF AUSTRALIA, WITH NOTES ON SOME RECENTLY DISCOVERED SPECIES, BY J.E.  GRAY, F.R.S., ETC.  ETC., IN A LETTER ADDRESSED TO THE AUTHOR.

British Museum, 10th July 1841.

MY DEAR SIR,

The very little attention which has hitherto been paid to the distribution of the animals of Australia, and the very incorrect manner in which the habitats of the different species are given in collections and systematic works, have induced me to send you, with the description of the new species recently brought from that country, a table showing at one view the distribution of the different species which have hitherto been recorded as found in Australia, as far as the materials at my disposal will allow me.