From Mount Bannerman DESERT, including open
to Hall's Creek 150 scrubs with grass, open
From Hall's Creek grass plains, belts of
to end of Sturt Creek 160 grass fringing river
From edge of desert banks, small oases,
to Lake Darlot 50 and hilly country.
Oases (Helena Spring,
Woodhouse Lagoon,
Lake Wells, &c.) 10
---- 470
-----
2,450 *
550 By roads and tracks.
-----
3,000 **
-----
* Of which 2,210 were through country unmapped except where routes of
previous explorers were crossed.
** Total mileage in round numbers, taking into account all deviations.

From the above table it will be seen that the greater part of the
interior of the Colony seen by us is absolutely useless to man or beast.
It is possible that between the Lake Darlot goldfield and the 25th
parallel of latitude isolated areas of auriferous country may be found,
though nothing that we saw proves this to be likely; and I base my
opinion only on the facts that quartz and ironstone are known to occur in
the vicinity of Lake Augusta and the Warburton Range. It is also possible
(and this I have already discussed) that a travelling route for stock may
be formed from South Australia along the 26th parallel as far as Mounts
Allott and Worsnop, and thence VIA Lake Wells and the Bonython Creek. to
the Erlistoun Creek and Lake Darlot.

Failing either the finding of gold, or the formation of a stock route
from oasis to oasis, I can see no use whatever to which this part of the
interior can be put.

North of the 25th parallel the country is absolutely useless until the
confines of the Kimberley district (about lat. 19 degrees) are reached.
That a stock route through the desert is quite impracticable we have
clearly demonstrated. Even supposing that there was any water supply,
there is no feed; nothing but spinifex grows in more than wee patches at
very long intervals. As any one who has followed me through this book can
see, our water supply was most precarious,