In consequence of the reports of Mr. Babbage of some good country in the district about Blanche Water, Mr. Groyder, the deputy surveyor-general, was despatched in 1857 with a small party to make a trigonometrical survey of that neighbourhood. Mr. Groyder measured his base line, and penetrated to the southern bank of Lake Torrens, in about latitude 29°, or thirty miles N.E. of St. Mary's Pool, this being about the northern extent of Mr. Babbage's explorations. Mr. Groyder returned with tidings which put the whole of the colony into a trepidation of delightful surprise. He declared that, in those parts of the country where former travellers had discovered only arid deserts and salt lakes, he had found Lake Torrens to be a fresh water lake, and the country about it abounding with romantic scenery, grassy plains, noble hills, vallies watered with fresh creeks, abounding with birds and flowers. What was most surprising, was that Mr. Goyder asserted that the southern banks of Lake Torrens showed no flood-marks, a proof that there was a constant level, and that the lake had other outlets for the floods. This was so totally contrary to the reports of Eyre, Stuart, and others, who represented the lake as lying in a basin bare of water over a vast extent, and the bed of it encrusted with salt, that it should have excited some misgivings in the public mind.