named
Blanche Water, or Lake Blanche. Some further excursions led to the
discovery of more fresh water and well-grassed pastoral country. The
aboriginals, too, directed him to what they said was a crossing-place in
that portion of Lake Torrens that had been sighted, in 1845, by Poole and
Browne of Captain Sturt's party, when Poole thought he saw an inland sea.
Their directions, however, proved unreliable, or Babbage failed to find
the place, for he lost his horse in the attempt to cross the lake.

In 1857, another excursion to the westward of Lake Torrens was made by a
Mr. Campbell, who discovered a creek of fresh water, which he called the
Elizabeth. He also visited Lake Torrens, of which he reported in similar
terms to those of previous explorers -- that it was surrounded with
barren country.

In April of the same year, a survey conducted by Deputy Surveyor-General
Goyder, over the same country as that lately explored by Babbage, led to
some absurd mistakes. A few miles north of Blanche Water he came to many
surface springs surrounding a fine lagoon. To the north of them was an
isolated hill, which he called Weathered Hill. From the summit of this
hill he had a curious example of the effects of refraction in this region
in a similar illusion to that which suggested Poole's inland sea. To the
northward he saw a belt of gigantic gum-trees, and beyond them what
appeared to be a sheet of water with elevated land on the far side. To
the eastward was another large lake. But all this was but the glamourie
of the desert -- on closer examination the gigantic gums dwindled down to
stunted bushes, and the mountainous ground to broken clods of earth.

But the greatest surprise reserved for Goyder was at Lake Torrens, where
he found the water quite fresh. He described the Lake as stretching from
fifteen to twenty miles to the north-west, with a water horizon, with an
extensive bay forming to the southward; while to the north, a bluff
headland and perpendicular cliffs were clearly to be discerned with the
telescope. From the appearance of the flood-marks, Goyder came to the
conclusion that there was little or no rise and fall in the lake, drawing
the natural conclusion that its size was such as not to be influenced
appreciably by flood waters, but that it absorbed them without showing
any variation in its level.

Adelaide was overjoyed at the news. The threatening desert that hemmed in
their fair province to the north was sudde