On this day ...
4 August 1770
Endeavour Voyage Maps
James Cook's Journal Ms 1, National Library of Australia
Transcript of Cook's Journal
Joseph Banks's Journal
Sydney Parkinson's Journal
Endeavour River to the Northern Extremity of the Country
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TO the harbour which we had now left, I gave the name of ENDEAVOUR RIVER. It is only a small bar harbour, or creek, which runs in a winding channel three or four leagues inland, and at the head of which there is a small brook of fresh water: there is not depth of water for shipping above a mile within the bar, and at this distance only on the north side, where the bank is so steep for near a quarter of a mile, that a ship may lie afloat at low water, so near the shore as to reach it with a stage, and the situation is extremely convenient for heaving down; but at low water, the depth upon the bar is not more than nine or ten feet, nor more than seventeen or eighteen at the height of the tide; the difference between high and low water, at spring tides, being about nine feet. At the new and full of the moon it is high water between nine and ten o’clock: it must also be remembered, that this part of the coast is so barricaded with shoals, as to make the harbour still more difficult of access; the safest approach is from the southward, keeping the main land close upon the board all the way. Its situation may always be found by the latitude, which has been very accurately laid down. Over the south point is some high land, but the north point is formed by a low sandy beach, which extends about three miles to the northward, where the land begins again to be high.
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Voyaging Accounts |  |
© Derived from Vols. II-III of the London 1773 edition: National Library of Australia call no. FERG 7243, pages 589 - 590, 2004
Published by kind permission of the Library
To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/hv23/589.html