Of the timber of these regions there was none; a few gum-trees near the creeks, with box-trees on the flats, and a few stunted acacia and hakea on the small hills, constituted almost the whole.

Water boiled on this plain at 212 degrees; that is to say at our camp were we slept, about two miles advanced into it, but the plain extended about five miles further to the eastward.

After crossing this on the following morning, we traversed a country which Mr.Browne informed me was very similar to that near Lake Torrens.

It consisted of sand banks, or drifts, with large bare patches at intervals: the whole bearing testimony to the violence of the rains that must sometimes deluge it.

We then traversed a succession of flats (I call them so because they did not deserve the name of plains) separated from each other by patches of red sand and clay, that were not more than a foot and a half above the surface of the flats.