Mr.Browne had not, however, been absent more than three-quarters of an hour, when he returned to inform me that he had been stopped by a salt creek, coming direct from the north, the bed of which was too soft for him to cross.

He said that its channel was white as snow, and that every reed and blade of grass on its banks, was encrusted with salt.

Under an impression that as long as I should continue in the neighbourhood of, and on a course nearly parallel to this creek, I could not hope for any favourable change, I decided on crossing it, and with that view turned to the west; but finding the bed of the creek still too soft to admit of our doing so, I traced it upwards to the north, along a sandy ridge.
As Mr.Browne had informed me, its channel was glittering white, and thickly encrusted with salt, nor was there any water visible, but on going down to examine it in several places where the salt had the appearance of broken and rotten ice, we found that there were deep pools of perfect brine underneath, on which the salt floated, to the thickness of three or four inches.

The marks of flood on the side of the sand hill shewed a rise of 12 feet above its ordinary level.

At about a mile and a half we descended the sand hill on which we had previously kept, and ascended another, when we saw the basin of the creek immediately below us, but quite dry, and surrounded by sand hills.