Page:Tracks of McKinlay and party across Australia.djvu/78

 nearly one-half of the Australian interior still uninvaded. But this conjecture as to its qualities has to encounter that arid desert that arrested Gregory beyond the sources of the Victoria of the Northwest, and that looks down ominously over this unexplored expanse from its northern margin. The conjecture, nevertheless, is based upon an opinion, somewhat general, that an inlet or strait of the sea has covered, recently perhaps, the flat or hollow country between Spencer Gulf and Carpentaria. The low sandy region that continues northwards from the head of Spencer Gulf may have been at no remote time (geologically speaking) the shallow channel of a sea dividing Australia into two great islands. This recently raised and sterile sea-bed is still marked out by the line of the fitful Lake Torrens and the lower course of the Cooper. Towards the Gulf of Carpentaria there is still the low flat country, but the rains and vegetation of a more regular and tropical climate have covered the surface with a better soil.

THE ABORIGINAL NATIVES.

We quit the subject of soil and climate for that of the living occupants who are in the midst of both, to enjoy or endure the ordeal of their extremes. Our information regarding the aboriginal race, derived from the recent expeditions, tends, as already stated, to enlarge our previous estimates