SOUTH AUSTRALIA.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume II, Issue 54, 18 October 1845, Page 4

SOUTH AUSTRALIA.

From Adelaide papers to the 6th September the most important news is, that despatches had been received from Captain Sturt. The galiant Captain and his party must have undergone great privations and fatigue. The country to the northward of South Australia appears to be of a most useless description. The following is a summary of the results of the expedition :—: — He had discovered a district of country, supplied with grass and water at all seasons of the year. This place (where a depot was formed) is situated between Jatitude 29' 48' 12", and 29' 14', and longitude 141' 30', and forms an excellent point d'appui for the present and any future expedition into the interior of this vast continent. The farthest point to which Captain Sturt J attained was in lat. 28', nearly due north of the depot : and when there he believes he was within from thirty to fifty miles of an inland sea. In this belief he was strengthened by the emigration of birds — by every observation j he made — and by every occurrence which took place. One of the occurrences was important and cheering ; a native from the north, speaking a totally different language from those in the vicinity of the depot, joined the party. He knew the use of the boat — of fish nets — necognised the figures of several large sea fishes in Cuvier's plates — and pointed to the north-west as the direction in which they should go. The heat appears to have been very great. Captain Sturt states that he found the thermometer which was fixed in the shade of a large tree four feet from the ground, stationary at 135' of Fahrenheit at half-past two, p. m., and that in the direct rays of the sun, it rose to 157.° The late lamented Mr. Poole visited the eastern extremity of Lake Torrens, but was unfortunately prevented from ascertaining whether its waters extend to the north : it may possibly be a part of the great inland sea. Captain Sturt's intention was, so soon as the rains set in, to proceed to the north-west in search of the inland sea ; so that the next intelligence will probably settle this great problem. The meeting to consider the best means of preventing the introduction of the conditionally 'pardoned convicts from Van Diemen's Land, was numerously attended, and a very strong feeling was exhibited. The following was the first and principal resolution :—: —

That the colonists have 'seen with feelings of the utmost alarm and indignation; the announcement of a recent measure, being a resolution of Her Majesty's Government authorising the Governor of Van Diemen's Land to grant pardons as may seem meet, to convicted criminals, upon the sole condition of their not going beyond the colonies of Australia or New Zealand, by which conditional emancipation of felons, this highly priviledged, free, and now happy and prosperous province, is threatened with an inundation of vice, crime, and misery, to the exclusion or forestalling of that abundant supply of free labour from the mother country, which the ample resources of the colony will now enable it to provide for itself; and beino 1 , moreover, in direct contravention of the Act of the Imperial Parliament under which the colony was founded, and has hitherto flourished, and on the faith of which the colonists emigrated hither. A fommittee for diffusing information on the state and prospects of South Australia, established in London, distributed {wenty-five thousand copies of a statistical pamphlet early in the present year. — In reply to a petition from the inhabitants of Western Australia, Lord Stanley said, "it is not at present in the contemplation of Her Majesty's Government to include the Australasian Colonies in the plan of steam-packet communication to some of the Eastern Colonies." Wheat was quoted at four shillings a bushel at Adelaide.