rmed a
table land that has been washed to pieces by the violent action of water,
and of which these fragments now only remain. Upon forcing a way through
this dreary region, in three different directions, I found that the whole
of the low country round the termination of Flinders range, was
completely surrounded by Lake Torrens, which, commencing not far from the
head of Spencer's Gulf, takes a circuitous course of fully 400 miles, of
an apparent breadth of from twenty to thirty miles, following the sweep
of Flinders range, and almost encircling it in the form of a horse shoe.

"The greater part of the vast area contained in the bed of this immense
lake, is certainly dry on the surface, and consists of a mixture of sand
and mud, of so soft and yielding a character, as to render perfectly
ineffective all attempts either to cross it, or reach the edge of the
water, which appears to exist at a distance of some miles from the outer
margin. On one occasion only was I able to taste of its waters; in a
small arm of the lake near the most north-westerly part of it, which I
visited, and here the water was as salt as the sea. The lake on its
eastern and southern sides, is bounded by a high sandy ridge, with
salsolae and some brushwood growing upon it, but without any other
vegetation. The other shores presented, as far as I could judge, a very
similar appearance; and when I ascended several of the heights in
Flinders range--from which the views were very extensive, and the
opposite shores of the lake seemed to be distinctly visible--no rise or
hill of any kind could ever be perceived, either to the west, the north,
on the east; the whole region around appeared to be one vast, low, and
dreary waste. One very high and prominent summit in this range, I have
named Mount Serle; it is situated in 30 degrees 30 minutes south
latitude, and about 139 degrees 10 minutes east longitude, and is the
first point from which I obtained a view of Lake Torrens to the eastward
of Flinders range, and discovered that I was hemmed in on every side by a
barrier it was impossible to pass. I had now no alternative left me, but
to conduct my party back to Mount Arden, and then decide what steps I
should adopt to carry out the objects of the expedition. It was evident,
that to avoid Lake Torrens, and the low desert by which it is surrounded,
I must go very far either to the east or to the west before again
attempting to penetrate to the north.

"My party