falling at the head of the Sturt to pass his homestead, which gives it a
rate of one mile per hour. Heavy rains had fallen at its source about a
month before our arrival, and the water was still flowing. We therefore
saw the lakes as full as they are ever likely to be, except in abnormal
seasons. North of the lake are numerous large clay-pans which had not
been flooded, and the lakes could evidently hold more water, and had done
so in time past, so that it is pretty clear that the lakes are large
enough for ordinary flood waters, and, with the outlying clay-pans, can
accommodate the waters of an extraordinary flood.

I feel confident, therefore, that no outlet exists, and that beyond doubt
the Sturt ends at the Salt Sea, and does not "make" again further
South, as some have suggested. Standing on any of the hills which
surround the lake, some distance (ten miles or so) from it, one can look
down upon the water, certainly five hundred feet below the level of the
hills, which rise no more than eighty feet above the surrounding plain.
It seems most improbable, therefore, that a creek should break its way
through country of so much greater altitude without being seen by Colonel
Warburton or myself, or that any connection should exist between the Salt
Sea and Warburton's Salt Lakes to the South-East.

Had, however, the intervening country been of the same level as the lake,
and flat instead of formed into high sand ridges and hills, there might
have been a possibility of crossing a connecting creek of the same
character as the Sturt without noticing it. This question has been much
discussed by gentlemen interested in the geography of interior Australia,
and therefore I have dealt with it at some length.