INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 6 



afiected the exploration of the northern parts of South Australia. This 

 is the hypothesis of a horseshoe Lake Torrens, which persisted to about 

 the year 1858, when a crossing was discovered joining the Far North, 

 as it was then called, to the newly discovered pastoral country in the 

 north-west. 



In 1836 Adelaide was founded, and within three years E. J. Eyre 

 made his first attempt to explore the Far-Northern interior. (/) His 

 furthest point was a hill which was afterwards named Mount Ejtc by 

 Governor Gawler. From the summit of this hill he discovered Lake 

 Torrens. The view northwards was of low, rocky, sandy country, 

 wdthout trees or shrubs or any sort of growth except a few stunted 

 bushes. On the east the view was backed by high, rugged ranges, 

 very barren in appearance, and extending northwards as far as the eye 

 could reach. To the west and north-west appeared a broad, glittering 

 strip of water. This he named Lake Torrens. (g) 



In 1840 the possibility of an overland communication between 

 South Australia and Western Australia engrossed public opinion in 

 Adelaide. Eyre volunteered to head a party and to pay one-third of 

 its expense. The principal object of the expedition was to open up a 

 practicable stock'route. (h) Eyre favored a northern route — rather than 

 one to the westward — as being a more promising opening either for 

 the discovery of good country or of an available route across the con- 

 tinent ; in fact, this objective of the expedition, if it had been carried 

 out, would have made known the later discoveries of Babbage, War- 

 burton, and Stuart. 



The difficulties which E}'re encountered in his repeated endeavors 

 to find a way from the Flinders Kange into Central Australia were due 

 in great part to a season of drought. But it was an unfortunate 

 coincidence that in each of his attempts to find a passage he should 

 have struck either Lake Torrens or the lakes which we know now as 

 Lake Eyre, Lake Gregory, and Lake Blanche. Besides these he saw, 

 from the summit of Mount Serle, another, which is Lake Frome. 



He considered, and not unnaturally, that they were continuations 

 of one and the same lake, and he thus defines the position in a summary 

 of the facts on which he based that conclusion. He says, referring to 

 the view from Mount Hopeless — " The lake was now visible to the north 

 and to the east, and I had at last ascertained beyond all doubt that its 

 basin, commencing near the head of Spencer's Gulf and following the 



</) " Journals of the Expeditions of Discovery into Central Australia in the Years 



1840-1 : E. J. Eyre, 1845. 



{g),Oi) Op. cit., Vol. L, pp. 5-G. 



