They found it to be a column of sandstone, on the apex of a hill.

The hill was but a low one of a few hundred feet in height, but the sandstone column that surmounted it was one hundred and fifty feet in height and twenty feet in width.

This striking object was named by Stuart Chambers Pillar, to commemorate a friend who had assisted him greatly in his explorations.
It stood amongst other elevations of fantastic shapes and grotesque formations, resembling ruined forts and castles.

On the 9th of April they sighted two remarkable bluffs, and on the 12th reached the range of which the bluffs formed the centre.

The eastern bluff was called Brinkley Bluff and the western Hanson Bluff; the range, which is now well-known as a leading geographical feature of Australia, and on which the most elevated peaks in the interior have since been found, Stuart named the MacDonnell Range, after the then Governor of South Australia.