be an inland sea, still less a deep navigable one, and having an outer
communication with the ocean. I can readily suppose, and, in fact, I do
so believe, that a considerable portion of the interior consists of the
beds or basins of salt lakes or swamps, as Lake Torrens, and some of
which might be of great extent. I think, also, that these alternate, with
sandy deserts, and that probably at intervals, there are many isolated
ranges, like the Gawler range, and which, perhaps, even in some places
may form a connection of links across the continent, could any favourable
point be obtained for commencing the examination.

It is very possible that among these ranges, intervals of a better or
even of a rich and fertile country might be met with.

The suggestion thrown out by Captain Sturt a few years ago, that
Australia might formerly have been an Archipelago of islands, appears to
me to have been a happy idea, and to afford the most rational and
satisfactory way of accounting for many of the peculiarities observable
upon its surface or in its structure. That it has only recently (compared
with other countries) obtained its present elevation, is often forcibly
impressed upon the traveller, by the appearance of the country he is
traversing, but no where have I found this to be the case in a greater
degree, than whilst exploring that part of it, north of Spencer's Gulf,
where a great portion of the low lands intervening, between the base of
Flinders range, and the bed of Lake Torrens, presents the appearance of a
succession of rounded undulations of sand or pebbles washed perfectly
smooth and even, looking like waves of the sea, and seeming as if they
had not been very many centuries deserted by the element that had moulded
them into their present form. In this singular district I found scattered
at intervals throughout the whole area inclosed by, but south of, Lake
Torrens, many steep-sided fragments of a table land, [Note 34 at end of