4 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 



course of Flinders Kange (bending round its northern extreme to tlie 

 southward), constituted those hills — the termination of the island of 

 South Australia, for such I imagine it once to have been." {i) 



It is therefore to Eyre, whose conclusions were confirmed by the 

 report of Captain Frome in 1842-3, that we must attribute the first 

 development of the idea of the horseshoe Lake Torrens, which would 

 present insurmountable obstacles to any attempt to enter Central 

 Australia from the direction of the Flinders Range. 



Eyre, believing it to be impossible to find an overland stock route 

 by way of the north, and after taking into consideration the possibility 

 of reaching Central Australia by following up the Murray and Darling 

 rivers, decided to strike from Mount Arden to Streaky Bay, and then, 

 pushing westward, to see whether some favorable opening of country 

 would enable him to turn northwards. This led him to make one of 

 the most sensational of all the Australian expeditions. 



The next expedition which was fitted out to explore Central Aus- 

 tralia was that of which Captain Sturt was the originator and leader. 

 Sturt was one of the early explorers who developed the knowledge of 

 the interior of Australia from Sydney. They travelled with bullock 

 teams, horses, convict servants, and, in some cases, with soldiers. 

 Major Mitchell was a typical explorer of this class, and travelled under 

 conditions of climate and surroundings differing altogether from those 

 which the later explorers who attempted to enter Central Australia 

 encountered. 



Sturt was the last of the old type, having in his party no less than 

 five bullock-drivers ; but, in fact, he made his remarkable excursions 

 from his depot into Central Australia during a protracted drought 

 with horses only. Considering the new and formidable difficulties 

 which he successfully encountered, Sturt stands pre-eminent among 

 Australian explorers for the care with which he carried out his mission 

 and the general success which attended him under exceptional 

 seasons. 



Sturt started from Adelaide on his great expedition to Central 

 Australia on the 12th of August, 1844, and returned to Adelaide on 

 the 19th of January, 1846, after an absence of nearly a year and a half. 

 He decided that as Eyre had proved the existence of a horseshoe Lake 

 Torrens to proceed by following up the Darling River to WiUiorara 

 (Laidley's Ponds), referred to by Major Mitchell, and thence to gain the 

 chain of hills, by the continuation of which he hoped to be able to reach 

 the good country which he believed to exist near the tropics. He 

 (i) Op. cit. Vol. L, p. 128. 



