Burke and a small party crossed Australia from south to north, enduring innumerable hardships, Burke, with two of his associates, perishing on the return journey.

About the same time Stuart crossed farther to the west, reaching the very centre of Australia, and telegraphic wires now almost exactly follow his line of route, affording communication, by way of Port Darwin, between Adelaide and the great telegraphic systems of the world.
ATTEMPTS TO CROSS THE DESERT.
The telegraph line divides Australia into two portions, nearly equal in dimensions, but very different in character.

To the east are the busy and rapidly advancing settlements, fertile plains, extensive ranges of grassy downs, broad rivers, abundant vegetation; to the west a great lone land, a wilderness interspersed with salt marshes and lakes, barren hills, and spinifex deserts.

It is the Sahara of the south, but a Sahara with few oases of fertility, beyond which is the thin fringe of scattered settlements of the colony of Western Australia.

To cross this desert, to discover routes connecting the western territory with South Australia and the line marked by the telegraph, has been the ambition of later explorers.