I named this piece of water Pelican Lagoon.  It is also frequented by flocks of the pied shag, and by some ducks and gulls; and the shoals supplied us with a few oysters.  The surrounding country is almost everywhere thickly covered with brushwood; and the soil appeared to be generally of a good quality, though not deep.  Prospect Hill and the parts around it are more sandy; and there seemed to be swamps at the head of both branches of the lagoon.  The isthmus which separates the southern branch from the sea is low, but rises gradually up the cliffs of the coast.

Not being able to return on board the same night, we slept near the entrance of the lagoon.  It was high water by the shore, on the morning of the 5th [MONDAY 5 APRIL 1802], at six o’clock; but on comparing this with the swinging of the ship, it appeared that the tide had then been running more than an hour from the westward.  The rise in the lagoon seemed to be from four to eight feet.

A few kangaroos had been obtained during my absence, as also some seal skins; but one of the sailors having attacked a large seal incautiously, received a very severe bite in the leg and was laid up.  After all the researches now made in the island, it appeared that the kangaroos were much more numerous at our first landing-place, near Kangaroo Head, than elsewhere in the neighbourhood.  That part of the island was clearer of wood than most others; and there were some small grass plats which seemed to be particularly attractive and were kept very bare.  Not less than thirty emus or cassowaries were seen at different times; but it so happened that they were fired at only once, and that ineffectually.  They were most commonly found near the longest of the small beaches to the eastward of Kangaroo Head, where some little drainings of water oozed from the rocks.  It is possible that with much time and labour employed in digging, water might be procured there to supply a ship; and I am sorry to say that it was the sole place found by us where the hope of procuring fresh water could be entertained.

Having received on board a good stock of wood, the launch was hoisted in and every thing prepared for going to sea.  Next morning [TUESDAY 6 APRIL 1802], so soon as the sun was sufficiently elevated to be observed in the artificial horizon, I landed to take the last set of observations for the time-keepers; after which the anchor was weighed, and we steered out of Nepean Bay with a light breeze from the south-west.  Towards noon it fell calm, and finding by the land that the ship was set westward, an anchor was dropped nearly in our first place off Kangaroo Head; and Mr. Westall took the sketch given in the Atlas. (Atlas Plate XVII.  View 11.)

The rates of the time keepers were obtained, for the sake of expedition, from single altitudes of the sun’s upper and lower limbs, taken from a quicksilver horizon with a sextant fixed on a stand; the time being noted from Arnold’s watch, compared with Earnshaw’s time keepers before going on shore and immediately after returning.  From the altitudes of the 3rd, 4th, and 6th, in the morning, the rates of the two time keepers and their errors from mean Greenwich time, reduced to noon there on the last day, were as under.