CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEE. 
79 
very inhospitable nature of the country around Lake Torrens, 
added to my anxiety to remove our horses from the depot near 
Mount Arden, where there was but very little grass for them, 
prevented my devoting so much time to the examination of the 
lake and the country around it, as I should have wished ; and 
I therefore intend, if possible, on my return, to investigate it 
more fully, being anxious to ascertain, whether, as I suppose, 
there is a considerable drainage into it from the westward. The 
high land seen on its opposite side, appears to be a continuation 
of the table land, lying to the west of the head of Spencer’s 
Gulf ; and though the fall of the country appears to be to the 
north, I begin to be of opinion now that it is not in reality. 
Lake Torrens is evidently the basin into which all the waters 
from Flinders range fall, and its extent is very considerable ; in 
fact, where I last saw it to the north, it was impossible to say 
whether it terminated or not, from the very great distance it was 
off. The country lying between Flinders range on the one side, 
and the table land on the other, and north of Spencer’s Gulf, is 
of so low and so level a character that the eye alone is not a 
sufficient guide as to the direction in which the fall may be. On 
my previous visits, I felt convinced it was northerly, but I am 
now inclined to think that the drainage from Lake Torrens in 
seasons of wet, is to the south, into the head of the Gulf ; and 
I can only account for there not being a larger connecting water- 
course than the small shallow one found when crossing from 
Streaky Bay— and which I did not then imagine extended far 
above the head of the Gulf — by supposing that the seasons have 
so altered of late years that the overflow of the lake has never been 
sufficient to cause a run of water to the Gulf. Should my present 
supposition be correct, the idea of a northerly drainage is done 
away with, and we have yet to come to a “division of the 
waters.” My uncertainty on this most important point has made 
me most anxious to get my party removed to a place where they 
can remain until I can decide so interesting a point, and one on 
which our future prospects so much depend. The same causes 
that prevented my staying a little longer in the neighbourhood of 
