“This equality of elevation for so great an extent, and the evidently calcareous nature of the bank, at least in the upper 200 feet, would bespeak it to have been the exterior line of some vast coral reef, which is always more elevated than the interior parts, and commonly level with high water mark.  From the gradual subsiding of the sea, or perhaps from some convulsion of nature, this bank may have attained its present height above the surface, and however extraordinary such a change may appear, yet when it is recollected that branches of coral still exist, upon Bald Head, at the elevation of 400 feet or more, this supposition assumes a degree of probability, and it would farther seem that the subsiding of the waters has not been at a period very remote, since these frail branches have yet neither been all beaten down nor mouldered away by the wind and weather.

“If this supposition be well founded, it may with the fact of no other hill or object having been perceived above the bank in the greater part of its course, assist in forming some conjecture as to what may be within it, which cannot as I judge in such case, be other than flat sandy plains or water.  The bank may even be a narrow barrier between an interior and the exterior sea, and much do I regret the not having formed an idea of this probability at the time, for notwithstanding the great difficulty and risk, I should certainly have attempted a landing upon some part of the coast, to ascertain a fact of so much importance.”

Had there been any inland ranges they would have been seen by that searching officer from the ocean, but it is clear that none exists; for Mr. Eyre in his intercourse with the natives, during his journey from South Australia to King George’s Sound, elicited nothing from them that led him to suppose that there were any hills in the interior, or indeed that an inland sea was to be found there; even the existence of one may reasonably be doubted, and it may be that the country behind the Great Australian Bight is, as Captain Flinders has conjectured, a low sandy country, formed by a channel of 400 or 500 miles in breadth, separating the south coast of the continent from the west and north ones.  Although I did not gain the direct centre of the continent there can be very little doubt as to the character of the country round it.  The spirit of enterprise alone will now ever lead any man to gain it, but the gradual development of the character of the yet unexplored interior will alone put an end to doubts and theories on the subject.  The desert of Australia is not more extensive than the deserts in other parts of the world.  Its character constitutes its peculiarity, and that may lead to some satisfactory conclusion as to how it was formed, and by what agent the sandy ridges which traverse it were thrown up.  I would repeat that I am diffident of my own judgment, and that I should be indebted to any one better acquainted with the nature of these things than I am to point out wherein I am in error.