May 23, 1859.] M 'DOUG ALL STUART'S EXPEDITION. ' 337 



himself on the threshold of colonization. From the 7th of August, 

 when he entered on this desert country, he and his companion 

 Foster had to suffer from huDger and thirst during a fortnight 

 before they reached the settlement of Mr. Gibson, in Streaky Bay. 

 There, both the explorers nearly died, in consequence of the sudden 

 change from a state of want to good diet. Kecovering, however, 

 they reached the regularly settled districts of the colony, and were 

 hailed with acclamation in Adelaide. 



Now, had the brave M'Dougall Stuart perished like Leichhardt in 

 this last dreadful march to the sea-bord, all notion of a well- watered, 

 rich interior country on the north-west might have been for ages 

 unknown, and his success being ignored, his fate would have checked 

 all further enterprise in that direction. 



Whilst it is pleasing to reflect on this happy result, it is also 

 well to know, that the newly discovered fertile lands may be ap- 

 proaciied from the settled and central portions of the colony without 

 touching upon any part of the sterile saline coast-tract. For, 

 as above said, it has been ascertained that the Lake Torrens of 

 earlier days is divided into at least two bodies of water, and that 

 the mass of land dividing them, which has since been traversed, 

 may serve as the line of route to Stuart Range. 



Through the researches of the Government surveyor, Mr. Samuel 

 Parry, and of Corporal Burt, as well as by a return journey of 

 Major Warburton, it has also been ascertained that practicable 

 routes exist from Angepena, on the north-west of the settled countiy 

 of Adelaide, to the region of Lake Torrens, by which (there being a 

 sufficiency of water-holes) a communication may, it is hoped, be 

 maintained between the settled districts and the new country. 



At the same time this discovery of the local watei-parting of Stuart 

 Range must not be supposed to clash with the clear determinations 

 of Sturt, that the great mass of the continent directly to the north 

 of Victoria and South Australia is a vast saline depression. In fact 

 the fresh waters descend from the Stuart Range on the north-east 

 into that great sterile depression, and are there absorbed or evapo- 

 rated. As far, therefore, as our present knowledge goes, we learn 

 that the hilly grounds of Stuart Range, extending from south-east 

 to north-west, constitute a zone of no- great width, which pours 

 oif its waters both to the north-east and south-west into lower and 

 saline deserts. 



Navigation of the Murray^ Murrumbidgee, ^c. — Whilst such have been 

 the discoveries of travellers overland, an object of paramount im- 



