lying between Flinders range on the one side, and the table land on the
other, and 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 that the drainage from Lake
Torrens in seasons of wet, is to the south, 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 interesting 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 north for more than
about forty miles farther 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 a 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 watercourses were