land fertile country. I am aware it is the opinion of some of my
friends that the Stony Desert may communicate with Lake Torrens. Such may
have been and still may be the case--I will not argue the contrary, or
answer for the changes in so extraordinary a region. I only state my own
ideas from what I observed, strengthened by my view of the position I
occupied, when at my farthest north; we will therefore refer to that
position, and to the position of Lake Torrens, and see how far it is
probable, that a large channel, such as I have described the Stony
Dessert to be, should turn so abruptly, as it must do to connect itself
with that basin; the evident fall of the interior, as far as that fact
could be ascertained, being plainly from east to west.

The western shore of Lake Torrens, as laid down by Mr. Eyre, is in 137
degrees 40 minutes or thereabouts. Its eastern shore in 141 degrees of
longitude. Its southern extremity being in lat. 28 1/2 degrees. My
position was in 138 degrees of long. and 24 degrees 40 minutes of
latitude. I was therefore within 20 miles as far to the westward of the
westernmost part of Lake Torrens, and was also 250 geographical miles due
north of it. To gain Lake Torrens, the Stony Desert must turn at a right
angle from its known course, and in such case hills must exist to the
westward of where I was, for hills alone could so change the direction of
a current, but the whole aspect of the interior would argue against such
a conclusion. I never lost sight of the probability of Lake Torrens being
connected with some central feature, until my hopes were destroyed by the
nature of the country I traversed, nor do I think it probable that in so
level a region as that in which I left it, there is any likelihood of the
Stony Desert changing its direction so much as to form any connection
with the sandy basin to which I have alluded. Nevertheless it may do so.
We naturally cling to the ideas we ourselves have adopted, and it is
difficult to transfer them to the mind of another. In reference however
to what I had previously stated, I would give the following quotation
from Flinders. His impressions from what he observed while sailing along
the coast, in a great measure correspond with mine when travelling
inland, the only point we differ upon is as to the probable origin of the
great sea-wall, which appeared to him to be of calcareous formation, and
he therefore concluded that it had been a coral reef raised b