He was away from the 10th of August to the 8th of September, during which he found at his furthest point, a distance of two hundred miles, a good native well, which he named Midway Well.

On the 14th of September the whole party made a start, and reached Midway Well on the 29th, all well.

At Separation Well, another good well a little farther to the north, the party separated, C.F.Wells, a cousin of the leader, and G.L.Jones, intending to travel for about eighty miles in a north-west direction to examine the country, and then to return on a north-east course and rejoin the caravan at Joanna Springs, which had relieved Warburton in his extremity.

About thirty miles south of Joanna Springs, where the leader expected the two men to cut his tracks, Wells found his camels suffering terribly from the extreme heat and their labours among the constantly-recurring sand-ridges, whilst the scanty native wells they found were insufficient to give their camels water.

When at last they reached the latitude of Joanna Springs they had been obliged to abandon three camels and all their equipment except the actual necessaries.
It was also evident that the longitude of the springs given by Warburton was wrong, for all the country around was a sandy desert without the slightest indication of well or spring.