to investigate it more fully, being
anxious to ascertain, whether, as I suppose, there is a considerable
drainage into it from the westward. The high land seen on its opposite
side, appears to be a continuation of the table land, lying to the west
of the head of Spencer's Gulf; and though the fall of the country appears
to be to the north, 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 north, 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 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,