It is nearly completed, and when fitted up with the telescopes and other astronomical instruments sent out by the Board of Longitude, will afford a desirable retreat from the listlessness of a camp evening at Port Jackson.

One of the principal reasons which induced the Board to grant this apparatus was, for the purpose of enabling Lieutenant Dawes, of the marines, (to whose care it is intrusted) to make observations on a comet which is shortly expected to appear in the southern hemisphere.

The latitude of the observatory, from the result of more than three hundred observations, is fixed at 33 deg 52 min 30 sec south, and the longitude at 151 deg 16 min 30 sec east of Greenwich.

The latitude of the south head which forms the entrance of the harbour, 33 deg 51 min, and that of the north head opposite to it at 33 deg 49 min 45 sec south.
Since landing here our military force has suffered a diminution of only three persons, a serjeant and two privates.

Of the convicts fifty-four have perished, including the executions.