102 THE SPENCER GULF DISTRICT 



an immense salt marsh, of which Lake Torrens, other 

 inland quagmires, and the shores of Spencer Gulf, are 

 remains. Until improvements were made, and protective 

 dykes erected, Port Augusta, and the scattered settlements 

 near it, were in constant danger of inundation ; and to this 

 day wide stretches of the shore are horrible mud wastes on 

 which no man dare set foot for fear of being engulfed. 

 Some of those mud-flats are covered with reeds, but I 

 found it impossible to penetrate far among them. Often 

 I sank into the soft ooze above the knees, and more than 

 once was in some danger of being embedded in the mud. 

 So far as I could discover there were few inhabitants of 

 these reed beds except ducks and black swans, and these 

 are not nearly so numerous as they were a few years ago. 

 They are shot in great numbers by the farmers and others ; 

 and the black swan, a particularly shy bird, seems to 

 forsake a neighbourhood where it is much disturbed. In 

 the quieter reaches of the gulf, and in remote bays, they 

 still breed in considerable numbers; but in 1896 when 

 my last visit to this district took place, a black swan was 

 rarely seen anywhere near Port Augusta. 



At Port Augusta the gulf has narrowed to a creek, and 

 looking across it to the country on the opposite shore, one 

 sees a range of hills flat topped, and horizontally striated 

 near the summit ridge, as so many ranges in Australia 

 are — a characteristic that hereafter will frequently be 

 referred to — and the origin of which is clearly a puzzle to 

 the geologists, their attempted explanations notwithstand- 

 ing. That which puzzled Darwin seems to also puzzle more 

 modern professors of the earthy science ; at anyrate I 

 have not yet seen an explanation of the peculiar Australian 

 mountain forms which is quite convincing. 



Turning the eyes southward and eastward more lofty 

 mountains are seen, some of them at a great distance ; 

 and these seem to be of a quite different formation. It 

 is nearly always so with Australian mountains ; rarely 

 does there seem to be much system in their arrangement, 

 indeed I may say no system at all. A jumble of small 

 ranges, isolated mounts, and erratic groups, is the usual 



