In the same year, 1857, Stephen Hack started with a party from Streaky Bay to examine the Gawler Range of Eyre, and investigate the country west of Lake Torrens.  He reached the Gawler Range and examined the country very carefully, finding numerous fresh-water springs, and large plains covered with both grass and saltbush.  He also discovered a large salt lake, Lake Gairdner.  Simultaneously with Hack’s expedition, a party under Major Warburton was out in the same neighbourhood; in fact, Hack’s party crossed Warburton’s tracks on one or two occasions.  Strange to say, the reports of the two were flatly contradictory.  Warburton described the country as dry and arid; but Hack’s account was distinctly favourable.  Of the two men, however, it is most probable that Hack possessed the more experience and knowledge of country, and, moreover, Time, the great arbitrator, has endorsed his words.

The year 1857 saw much exploration done in South Australia.  One party, consisting of Swinden, Campbell, Thompson, and Stock, at about seventy miles from the head of Spencer’s Gulf, found good pastoral country and a permanent water-hole called by the natives Pernatty. to the north they came upon Campbell’s former discovery of the Elizabeth, but their provisions failing they were forced to return.

A month afterwards Swinden started again from Pernatty.  North of the Gawler Range he found available pastoral country, which became known as Swinden’s country.  During this year also, Miller and Dutton explored the country at the back of Fowler’s Bay.  Forty miles to the north they saw treeless, grassy plains stretching far inland, but could find no permanent water.  Warburton afterwards reported in depreciatory terms of this region; but Delisser and Hardwicke, who also visited it, stated that it would make first-class pastoral country if only surface water could be obtained.  During the whole of Warburton’s career, his judgment of the pastoral value of country seems to have been lamentably defective.  He made no allowance for the varying nature of the seasons.  A suggestion that he made to the South Australian Government to explore the interior, which had turned back such men as Sturt and Gregory, with the aid of the police, verges on the ludicrous.

In 1858, the South Australian Government voted a sum of money to fit out a party to continue the northern explorations.  This party was put under the leadership of Babbage; but he was not given a free hand, being hampered with official instructions, and there being no allowance made for unforeseen exigencies.  His instructions were to examine the country between Lakes Torrens and Gairdner, and to map the respective western and eastern shores of the two lakes, so as to remove for the future any doubt as to their actual formation and accurate position.  This alone, apart from any extended exploration, meant a work of considerable time; but, unfortunately for the surveyor in charge, the general public was just then eager for fresh discoveries