Indeed, I have myself (at various times) crossed over the whole of this distance from east to west, from Sydney to Swan River.

In the early part of the Expedition, 1840, the continuation of Flinders range, from Mount Arden, was traced and laid down to its termination, near the parallel of 29 degrees S.It was ascertained to be hemmed in by an impassable barrier, consisting of the basin of an immense lake, which I named Lake Torrens, and which, commencing from the head of Spencer's Gulf, increased in width as it swept to the north-west, but subsequently bent round again to the north-east, east and south-east, in correspondence with the trend of Flinders range, the northern extremity of which it completely surrounded in the form of a horse-shoe.

The shores of this lake I visited to the westward of Flinders range, at three different points, from eighty to ninety miles apart from each other, and on all these occasions I found the basin to consist, as far as I could penetrate, of a mass of mud and sand, coated on the surface with a crust of salt, but having water mixed with it beneath.

At the most north-westerly point attained by me, water was found in an arm of the main lake, about two feet deep, clear, and salt as the sea; it did not extend, however, more than two or three hundred yards, nor did it continue to the bed of the main lake, which appeared, from a rise that I ascended near the arm, to be of the same character and consistency as before.

The whole course of the lake, to the farthest point visited by me, was bounded by a steep, continuous, sandy ridge, exactly like a sea-shore ridge; those parts of its course to the north, and to the east of Flinders range, which I did not go down to, were seen and laid down from various heights in that mountain chain.