68 Port Jackson N.S.W December 1833 we entered at eight o'clock; and at nine we anchored below Garden Island, and a- bout 2 1/2 miles from the town of Sydney. The harbor is one of the most beautiful I have ever seen, the verdure descending to the water's edge. It is so land locked and its waters are so smooth, that it more resembles rather the appearance of a pond of fresh-water than an inlet of the sea. It is a long, crooked bay, with a series of beautiful coves along each shore, and containing many small is- lands. The depth of the water is every- where nearly the same ( from 9 to 12 fms) these being only one shoal in the har- bor (the sea and pipe, near the entrance) so that for the purposes of commerce it is one of the finest in the world. In the afternoon I took a boat and examined the shores. They were com- pounded of horizontal strata of a coarse but uniform Sandstone, which was worn into the most singular shapes by the action of the waves, which rise and fall here from 6- to 8 feet. The rocks of the 1st and 2nd Subregions (which only were un- covered this afternoon) were inhabited by several species of Crusts of medium size, of the genera Grapsus, Cyclograpsus? Cancer etc and a great variety of littoral mollusks, of the genera Trochus Monodonta, Merita Purpura, Littorina, Siphonaria and Patella there being in all about eight species of these genera, all very common, and all of about equal size (the Littorina excep- ted) - three-quarters of an inch in diameter. A small dark green Asterina was also very common; and a Nemertes and a few Amphipods (Macrostus) were found. A little gregarious bivalve resembling Venus gemma was very common. On returning to the ship a dredge-full of the mud which forms the bottom of the harbor in 8-12 f. produced two sidigular Spinous Holothurice, a long-armed Ophiopsis, a Chetopterus, a common purple Astropecten and several worms and Amphipoda. In the evening, together with several of the officers I went into one of the coves and had a swimming excursion, and landed at a place where a fine Sandy beach extended for half a mile be- tween two rocky promontories