Page:Expeditions of Discovery in South Australia (IA jstor-1798142).pdf/11

 and from which I can again penetrate more to the northward. After an absence of sixteen days I rejoined my party under Mount Arden on the evening of the 21st July.

"The high land seen on the opposite side of Lake Torrens appears to be a continuation of the table-land lying to the W. of the head of Spencer's Gulf; and though the fall of the country appears to be to the N., I begin to be of opinion now that it is not in reality. Lake Torrens is evidently the basin into which all the waters from Flinders Range fall, and its extent is very considerable; in fact, where I last saw it to the N. it was impossible to say whether it terminated or not, from the very great distance it was off. The country lying between Flinders Range on the one side, and the table-land on the other, and the north of Spencer's Gulf, is of so low and so level a character that the eye alone is not a sufficient guide as to the direction in which the fall may be. On my previous visits I felt convinced it was northerly, but I am now inclined to think the drainage from Lake Torrens, in seasons of wet, is to the S., into the head of the gulf; and I can only account for there not being a larger connecting watercourse than the small shallow one found when crossing from Streaky Bay—and which I did not then imagine extended far above the head of the gulf—by supposing that the seasons have so altered of late years that the overflow of the lake has never been sufficient to cause a run of water to the gulf. Should my present supposition be correct, the idea of a northerly drainage is done away with, and we have yet to come to a 'division of the waters.' My uncertainty on this most important point has made me most anxious to get my party removed to a place where they can remain until I can decide so important a point, and one on which our future prospects so much depend. The same causes that prevented my staying a little longer in the neighbourhood of the lake have also prevented, as yet, my extending my researches to the N. for more than about forty miles further than I had been when last in this neighbourhood. The only change I observed was the increasing barren appearance of the country—the decrease in elevation of the ranges—their becoming more detached, with sterile valleys between—and the general absence of springs. The rock of the higher ridges, which were very rugged and abrupt, was still the same, quartz and ironstone, but much more of the latter than I had before seen, and in some cases, with a very great proportion of metal to the stone. The lower ridges and steep banks, when washed away by the rains, presented great quantities of very pungent salt to the eye of the observer, mixed with the clay and sand of which the banks were formed; and in this neighbourhood the creeks were (though dry) all lined with the salt water tea-tree—a shrub we had never before seen under Flinders Range."

A subsequent despatch from Mr. Eyre, dated the 9th October, gives an account of their further proceedings up to the date of the despatch:—

"Upon leaving our depôt near Mount Arden, the low, arid, and sandy nature of the country between the hills and Lake Torrens compelled us to follow close under the continuation of Flinders Range. Here our progress was necessarily very slow from the rugged nature of