GAIRDNER, LAKE

largest of a group of shallow depressions west of Lake Torrens in central South Australia, 240 mi northwest of Adelaide. It measures 100 mi (160 km) long by 30 mi wide. Lying at the base of the Eyre Peninsula, the lake is a dry salt pan (playa) intermittently filled with water. Visited in 1857 almost simultaneously by Stephen Hack and Peter E. Warburton, it is named after Gordon Gairdner, former chief clerk in the Australian Department of the Colonial Office. The lake is surrounded by large sheep stations set amid sand hills and salt-bush vegetation.