CONCLUDING REMARKS. 
127 
entirely of rugged barren rocks, without timber or 
vegetation. There was not a stream or a water- 
course of any kind emanating from it ; we could find 
neither spring nor permanent fresh water, and the 
only supply we procured for ourselves was from the 
deposits left by very recent rains, and which in a few 
days more, would have been quite dried up. The 
soil was in many places saline, and wherever water 
had lodged in any quantity (as in lakes of which 
there were several) it was quite salt.* 
Continuing the line of coast to the westward, the 
expedition passed through the most wretched and 
desolate country imaginable, consisting almost en- 
tirely of a table-land, or of undulating ridges, co- 
vered for the most part with dense scrubs, and 
almost wholly without either grass or water. The 
general elevation of this country was from three to 
five hundred feet, and all of the tertiary deposit, with 
primary rocks protruding at intervals. 
The first permanent fresh water met with on the 
surface was a small fresh- water lake, beyond the pa- 
rallel of 123° E. ; but from Mount Arden to that 
point, a distance of fully 800 miles in a direct line, 
none whatever was found on the surface (if I except 
a solitary small spring sunk in the rock at Streaky 
* A small exploring party, under a Mr. Darke, was sent from 
Port Lincoln in August, 1 844, but after getting as far as the 
Gawler Range were compelled by the inhospitable nature of the 
country to return. The unfortunate leader was murdered by the 
natives on his route homewards. 
