YAMPI SOUND

portion of the Indian Ocean off the north coast of Western Australia, between King Sound and Collier Bay. It contains the four island clusters of the Buccaneer Archipelago, named for the buccaneer William Dampier. High-grade iron-ore deposits occur on the islands, the largest of which are Koolan, Irvine (with extensive underwater iron deposits), and Cockatoo. On Cockatoo, named after the white birds that abound there, hematite (an iron ore) has been mined since 1951; mining on Koolan began in 1965. Most of the ore, extracted by the Broken Hill Proprietary Company, Ltd., is shipped to the company's steelworks at Whyalla, S.Aus., and at Port Kembla, N.S.W. Extreme tides on Yampi Sound make navigation difficult. The sound was named in 1838 by Lieutenant John Lort Stokes (who surveyed the coast aboard HMS Beagle) and derives from an Aboriginal word meaning freshwater.