"The accompanying sketch of the country from Mount Bryan northwards, will probably explain its character better than any written description. The altitudes marked at the different spots where they were observed, were obtained by the temperature of boiling water, as observed by two thermometers; but as they were not graduated with sufficient minuteness for such purposes, the results can only be considered approximate."
E. C. FROME,
Capt. Royal Engineers,
Surveyor-General.
September 14th, 1843.
In the above report it will be observed, that there are some apparent discrepancies between my account and Captain Frome's. First, with respect to the position of the south-east extremity of Lake Torrens. Captain Frome states that he found that point thirty miles more to the east than I had placed it in my chart. Now the only sketch of my course under Flinders range, and that a rough one, which I furnished to the Colonial Government, was sent from Port Lincoln, and is the same which was subsequently published with other papers, relative to South Australia, for the House of Commons, in 1843. This sketch was put together hastily for his Excellency the Governor, that I might not lose the opportunity of forwarding it when I sent from Port Lincoln to Adelaide for supplies early in October, 1840. It was constructed entirely, after I found myself compelled to return from the northern interior, and could only be attended to, in a hurried and imperfect manner, during the brief intervals I could snatch from other duties, whilst travelling back from the north to Port Lincoln (nearly 400 miles,) during which time my movements were very rapid, and many arrangements, consequent upon dividing my party at Baxter's range, had to be attended to; added to this were the difficulties and embarrassments of conducting myself one division of the party to Port Lincoln, through 200 miles of a desert country which had never been explored before, and which, from its arid and sterile character, presented impediments of no ordinary kind.
Upon my return to Adelaide in 1841, after the Expedition had terminated, other duties engrossed my time, and it was only after the publication of Captain Frome's report, that my attention was again called to the subject. Upon comparing my notes and bearings with the original sketch I had made, I found that in the hurry and confusion of preparing it, whilst travelling, I had laid down all the bearings and courses magnetic, without allowing for the variation; nor can this error, perhaps, be wondered at, considering the circumstances under which the sketch was constructed.
At Mount Hopeless the variation was 4 degrees E., at Mount Arden it was 7 degrees 24 minutes E. Now if this variation be applied proportionably to all the courses and bearings as marked down in the original chart, commencing from Mount Arden, it will be found that Mount Serle will be brought by my map very nearly in longitude to where Captain Frome places it. [Note 30 at end of para.] Our latitudes appear to agree exactly. The second point upon which some difference appears to exist between Captain Frome's report and mine is the character of Lake Torrens itself, which Captain Frome thought might more properly be called a desert. This, it will be observed, is with reference to its south-east extremity—a point I never visited, and which I only saw once from Mount Serle; a point, too, which from the view I then had of it, distant although it was, even at that time seemed to me to be "apparently dry," and is marked as such in Arrowsmith's chart, published from the sketch alluded to.
[Note 30: This has been done by Arrowsmith in the map which accompanies these volumes;—to which Mr. Arrowsmith has also added Captain Frome's route from the original tracings.]
There is, however, a still greater, and more singular difference alluded to in Captain Frome's report, which it is necessary to remark; I mean that of the elevation of the country. On the west side of Flinders range, for 200 miles that I traced the course of Lake Torrens, it was, as I have observed, girded in its whole course by a steep ridge, like a sea-shore, from which you descended into a basin, certainly not above the level of the sea, possibly even below it (I had no instruments with me to enable me to ascertain this,) the whole bed consisted of mud and water, and I found it impossible to advance far into it from its boggy nature. On the east side of Flinders range, Captain Frome found the lake a desert, 300 feet above the level of the sea, [Note 31: By altitude deduced from the temperature of boiling water.] and consisting of "loose and drifting sand," and "low sandy ridges, very scantily clothed with stunted scrub on their summits." Now, by referring to Captain Frome's chart and report, it appears that the place thus described was nearly thirty miles south of Mount Serle, and consequently twenty miles south of that part of the bed of Lake Torrens which I had seen from that hill. It is further evident, that Captain Frome had not reached the basin of Lake Torrens, and I cannot help thinking, that if he had gone further to the north-east, he would have come to nearly the same level that I had been at on the western side of the hills. There are several reasons for arriving at this conclusion. First, the manner in which the drainage is thrown off from the east side of Flinders range, and the direction which the watercourses take to the north-east or north; secondly, because an apparent connection was traceable in the course of the lake, from the heights in Flinders range, nearly all the way round it; thirdly, because the loose sands and low sandy ridges crowned with scrub, described by Captain Frome, were very similar to what I met with near Lake Torrens in the west side, before I reached its basin.
After the Northern Expedition had been compelled to return south, (being unable to cross Lake Torrens,) the peninsula of Port Lincoln was examined, and traversed completely round, in all the three sides of the triangle formed by its east and west coasts, and a line from Mount Arden to Streaky Bay. A road overland from Mount Arden was forced through the scrub for a dray; but the country travelled through was of so inhospitable a character as to hold out no prospect of its being generally available for overland communication. One unfortunate individual has since made an attempt to take over a few head of cattle by this route, but was unable to accomplish it, and miserably perished with his whole party from want of water. [Note 32: Vide note to page 154, Vol. I. (Note 11)]
On the northern side of the triangle I have alluded to, or on the line between Mount Arden and Streaky Bay, a singularly high and barren range, named the Gawler Range after His Excellency the Governor, was found consisting of porphoritic granite, extending nearly all the way across, and then stretching out to the north-west in lofty rugged outline as far as the eye could reach; the most remarkable fact connected with this range, was the arid and sterile character of the country in which it was situated, as well as of the range itself, which consisted entirely of rugged barren rocks, without timber or vegetation. There was not a stream or a watercourse of any kind emanating from it; we could find neither spring nor permanent fresh water, and the only supply we procured for ourselves was from the deposits left by very recent rains, and which in a few days more, would have been quite dried up. The soil was in many places saline, and wherever water had lodged in any quantity (as in lakes of which there were several) it was quite salt.
[Note 33: A small exploring party, under a Mr. Darke, was sent from Port Lincoln in August, 1844, but after getting as far as the Gawler Range were compelled by the inhospitable nature of the country to return. The unfortunate leader was murdered by the natives on his route homewards.]