ct or indurated quartz shewing white and abrupt faces. So terminated
the Coonbaralba Range, and so Mr. Eyre tells us did the Mount Serle
Range, and so terminated the range we saw to the westward of Lake
Torrens.

That they exhibit evidences of a past violent commotion of waters, I
think any one who will follow my steps and view them, will be ready to
admit.

That the range of hills I have called "Stanley's Barrier Range," and that
all the mountain chains to the eastward and westward of it, were once so
many islands I have not the slightest doubt, and that during the primeval
period, a sea covered the deserts over which I wandered; but it is
impossible for a writer, whatever powers of description he may have, to
transfer to the minds of his readers the same vivid impressions his own
may have received, on a view of any external object.

From the remarks into which I have thus been led, as well as those which
have escaped me in the course of this narrative, it will be seen that the
impressions I had received as to the past and present state of the
continent were rather strengthened than diminished, on my further
knowledge of its internal structure.

It is true, that I did not find an inland sea as I certainly expected to
have done, but the country as a desert was what I had anticipated,
although I could not have supposed it would have proved of such boundless
extent.

Viewing the objects for which the Expedition was equipped, and its
results, there can, I think, be no doubt, as to the non-existence of any
mountain ranges in the interior of Australia, but, on the contrary, that
its central regions are nearly if not quite on a sea level, and that the
north coast is separated from the south as effectually as if seas rolled
between them. I have stated my opinion that that portion of the desert
which I tried to cross continues with undiminished breadth to the Great
Australian Bight, and I agree with Captain Flinders, in supposing that if
an inland sea exists any where, it exists underneath and behind that
bank, (speaking from seaward). It would, I think, be unreasonable to
suppose that such an immense tract of sandy desert, once undoubtedly a
sea-bed, should immediately contract; considering, indeed, the sterile
character of the country to the north of Gawler's Range, to the westward
of Port Lincoln, and along the whole of the south coast of Australia,
nearly to King George's Sound, I must confess I have no hope of any
in