were approaching that feature, the continuance of which, in order to elucidate its probable origin, it had been a principal object in my present journey to ascertain.  I felt so convinced on this point, that I could not have returned to Adelaide without having satisfied my mind on the subject.  I might, indeed, have had general ideas as to the past state of the depressed interior, from what I had already seen of it; but the Stony Desert was the key to disclose the whole,—­and although I feared again to tread its surface, its existence so far away to the eastward of where I had first been on it, would at least tend to confirm my impressions as to what it had been.

It was clear, indeed, from the character of the country through which we had just passed, that we were again approaching the salt formation; more especially when, from the highest ground near us, I observed its generally dark aspect, and that there was the dry bed of a large salt lagoon directly in our course.  We here dug a fourth well:  the water was extremely muddy and thick, for the basin in which it was contained was very shallow, and the wind constantly playing on its surface raised waves that had stirred up the mud; but as there was more water than usual, I hoped that by deepening, it might settle.  This was nothing new to us, for not only on our journey to Lake Torrens and to the N.W., had we subsisted on similar beverage, but the water at the Depot at Fort Grey was half mud, and perfectly opaque.  However, it was a matter of necessity to retain it here if possible, and we therefore took the best measures in our power to do so.

On the 19th we resumed our journey on the former bearing, the wind blowing keen from the south.  At about a mile and a half we reached the salt lagoon, as it appeared to be in the distance, but which proved to be rather a flooded plain.  It was about two miles broad, and three and three-quarters long, and was speckled over rather than covered with salt herbs.  At this time, also, we had an immense barren plain to our left, bounded all around, but more particularly to the north, by sand hills; over these we toiled for nine miles, when at their termination the centre of the plain bore 176 degrees to the east of north, or nearly south.  At five miles and a half further, having previously crossed a small stony plain, succeeded by sand ridges and valleys, both covered with spinifex, we ascended a pointed hill that lay directly in our course, and from it beheld the Stony Desert almost immediately below our feet.  I must acknowledge, that coming so suddenly on it, I almost lost my breath.  It was apparently unaltered in a single feature:  herbless and treeless, it occupied more than one half of the visible horizon, that is to say, from 10 degrees east of north, westward round to south.  As to the eastward, so here the ridges we had just crossed abutted upon it, and as many of them were lower than the line of the horizon, they looked like sea dunes, backed by storm clouds, from the dusky colour of the plain.