When the plan was drawn it contained about nine acres laid down in corn of different kinds.

Later accounts speak of six acres of wheat, eight of barley, and six of other grain, as raised on the public account, and in a very promising way.
Sydney cove lies open to the north-east, and is continued in a south-west direction for near a thousand yards, gradually decreasing from the breadth of about one thousand four hundred feet, till it terminates in a point, where it receives a small stream of fresh water.

The anchorage extends about two thousand feet up the cove, and has soundings in general of four fathoms near the shore, and five, six, or seven, nearer the middle of the channel.

It is perfectly secure in all winds; and for a considerable way up on both sides, ships can lie almost close to the shore: nor are there, in any part of it, rocks or shallows to render the navigation dangerous.

Such a situation could not fail to appear desireable to a discerning man, whose object it was to establish a settlement, which he knew must for some time depend for support on the importation of the principal necessaries of life.
It is supposed that metals of various kinds abound in the soil on which the town is placed.