But before starting in company with these deathless
names, we must, for a while, return to Lake Torrens.
Eyre, it will be remembered, reached, after much labour, a hill to the
north east at the termination of the range, which he named Mount
Hopeless. From the view he obtained from the summit, he concluded that
Lake Torrens completely enclosed the northern portion of the province of
South Australia; and in fact that the province had once been an island,
as the low-lying plains probably joined the flat country west of the
Darling.
In 1843, the then Surveyor-General of the colony, Captain Frome, started
to the north to ascertain as much of this mysterious lake as he could. He
reached Mount Serle, and found the dry bed of the great lake to the
eastward, as described by Eyre, but discovered an error of thirty miles
in its position, Eyre having placed it too far to the eastward. Further
north than this, Frome did not proceed; on his way back lie made two
excursions to the eastward, but found nothing but sterile and unpromising
country. He confirmed then, the existence of a lake to the eastward of
the southern point of Lake Torrens, but his explorations did not go far
to determine the identity of the two, nor their uninterrupted continuity.
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