March 22, 1858.] RECENT AUSTRALIAN EXPLORATIONS. 
187 
and was led to believe that the water was little liable to changes of 
level. He records the vegetation visible on the northern shores 
of the lake, and also on several islands in it, whose perpendicular 
cliffs were clearly discerned by the aid of a telescope. He finally 
anticipated a time when Lake Torrens should become a depot for 
future observers, and a properly constructed ferry-boat placed upon 
its waters. He, moreover, remarks that it would be perfectly useless 
to repeat the number of times that he was deceived by mirage and 
surprised by the enormous refraction peculiar to these plains ; that 
some idea of it may be obtained from the fact that the large gum- 
trees seen from Weathered Hill to the north proved to be bushes 
of from two to four feet high, and that a large hill seen from 
the summit of Mount Serle by the aid of a powerful glass, and 
which he estimated at 3000 feet, dwindled down to 60. 
Consequent upon this report of Mr. Goyder, Captain Freeling, the 
surveyor-general, set out on an expedition to investigate its truth ; 
he took two boats, and thus states the result 
“ The extensive bays described in Mr. Goyder’s report, the bluff 
headlands, the several islands between the north and south shores, 
the vegetation covering them, and their perpendicular cliffs, have 
all been the result of mirage, and do not in point of fact exist as 
represented. The conclusion drawn in that report, that the lake is 
subject only to the most trifling variation of level, is also proved to 
be an erroneous deduction.” 
Captain Freeling arrived at the lake on the 3rd of September. 
He observed a marked change in the country after leaving Mounts 
Distance, Gardiner, and Freeling; the ranges merged into hum- 
mocky hills, sometimes isolated and standing on an extensive 
alluvial plain, upon which drift timber was to be seen for miles, 
and which, by rapidly cracking into fissures under the sun’s heat, 
gave sufficient evidence that floods took place, that a vast body of 
water was poured down by the M ‘Donnell and other streams running 
northerly after heavy falls of rain, and that the lake, when observed 
by Mr. Goyder, was merely an accumulation of such flood waters. 
Captain Freeling reached the exact spot from which Mr. Goyder 
saw the lake. He was accompanied by one of Mr. Goyder’s own 
companions, from whose statement it appeared that the water had 
already receded half a mile. For six miles back the land was 
nearly a dead level, and the soil was of the same character as that 
at the edge of the lake, and it had at times been flooded. The water 
of the lake was nearly fresh. On walking into it the party sank 
up to their ankles in mud. The flat-bottomed punt was brought and 
dragged half a mile across this mud, but there was not even then 
