In 1838, the city of Adelaide had scarcely been laid out, no
portion of it had yet been sold, when flocks and herds were on their way
to the new market, and from that period, even to the present, there has
been no cessation to their ingress--first of all, as I have stated, the
Murray, and then the Darling, became the high roads along which the
superfluous stock of Port Phillip and New South Wales were driven to
browse on South Australian pastures, and to increase the quantity and
value of her exports.

However low therefore the price of wool might have kept, the natural
increase of stock would still have gone on, and if we may judge from the
unflinching energies of the agricultural portion of the community, their
efforts to develop the productive powers of the soil, would rather have
been stimulated than depressed by the misfortunes with which they were
visited. I do them nothing more than justice when I assure the reader,
that settlers in the province from the neighbouring colonies, could not
help expressing their surprise at the state of cultivation, or their
admiration of the unconquerable perseverance, that could have brought
about so forward and creditable a state of things.

I have already stated that the general outline and form of the Mount
Lofty chain, bears a strong resemblance to the outline and form of the
Ural mountains. But it is of trifling elevation, running longitudinally
from north to south, with a breadth of from 15 to 20 miles. The
metalliferous veins crop out on the surface of the ground, preserving the
same longitudinal directions as the ranges themselves, and the rock in
which the ores are imbedded, generally speaking, is a compact slate. As
the Mount Lofty ranges extend northwards, so does the Barrier or Stanley
range, over which the recent expedition crossed on leaving the Darling;
no copper ores were found amongst those hills, but an abundance of the
finest ore of iron, running, as the out-croppings of the copper ores,
from north to south, and occurring in depressed as well as elevated
situations, the rock formation being very similar to that of the more
western ranges.

If we are to judge from these facts, it is very evident that strong
igneous action has influenced the whole, nor can I help thinking, from
general appearances, that the continent of Australia has been subjected
to a long subterranean process, by which it has been elevated to its
present altitude, and it appears to me that th