reat 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
para.] which had evidently been washed to pieces by the violent action of
water, and which appeared to have been originally, of nearly the same
general elevation as the table lands to the westward. It seems to me,
that these table lands have formerly been the bed of the ocean, and this
opinion is fully borne out by the many marine remains, fossil shells, and
banks of oyster shells, [Note 35 at end of para.] which are frequently to
be met with embedded in them. What are now the ranges of the continent
would therefore formerly have been but rocks or islands, and if this
supposition be true, there are still hopes that some other islands are
scattered over the immense space occupied by Australia, and which may be
of as rich and fertile a character, as any that are yet known. Thus if
the intervenin