The following is a copy of my final report to the Chairman of the Northern Expedition Committee:—­

“Fowler’s Bay, 30th Jan., 1841.

“Sir,—­By the return of the Hero from Fowler’s Bay, I have the honour to acquaint you, for the information of his Excellency the Governor, and the colonists interested, with the unsuccessful termination of the expedition placed under my command, for the purpose of exploring the northern interior.  Since my last report to his Excellency the Governor, containing an account of two most disastrous attempts to head the Great Australian Bight, I have, accompanied by one of my native boys, made a third and more successful one.  On this occasion, I with some difficulty advanced about fifty miles beyond the head of the Great Bight, along the line of high cliffs described by Flinders, and which have hitherto been supposed to be composed principally of chalk.  I found the country between the head of Fowler’s Bay and the head of the Great Bight to consist of a succession of sandy ridges, all of which were more or less covered by a low scrub, and without either grass or water for the last sixty miles.  This tract is of so uneven and heavy a nature that it would be quite impossible for me to take a loaded dray across it at this very unfavourable season of the year, and with horses so spiritless and jaded as ours have become, from the incessant and laborious work they have gone through during the last seven months.  Upon rounding the head of the Bight, I met with a few friendly natives, who shewed me where both grass and water was to be procured, at the same time assuring me that there was no more along the coast for ten of their days’ journeys, (probably 100 miles) or where the first break takes place in the long and continuous line of cliffs which extend so far to the westward of the head of the Great Bight.  Upon reaching these cliffs I felt much disappointed, as I had long looked forward to some considerable and important change in the character of the country.  There was, however, nothing very remarkable in their appearance, nor did the features of the country around undergo any material change.  The cliffs themselves struck me as merely exhibiting the precipitous banks of an almost level country of moderate elevation (three or four hundred feet) which the violent lash of the whole of the Southern Ocean was always acting upon and undermining.  Their rock formation consisted of various strata, the upper crust or surface being an oolitic limestone; below this is an indented concrete mixture of sand, soil, small pebbles, and shells; beneath this appear immense masses of a coarse greyish limestone, of which by far the greater portion of the cliffs are composed; and immediately below these again is a narrow stripe of a whitish, or rather a cream-coloured substance, lying in horizontal strata, but which the impracticable nature of the cliffs did not permit me to examine.  After riding for forty-five miles along their summits,