362 EVIDENCES OF EXTENSIVE GLACIER ACTION AT MT. KOSCIUSKO, 



From what I have seen I must confess that it appears as if this 

 ref^ion underwent a gUtcier period within its own limits and that 

 the cessation of it dates not very far back. The evidences are 

 very striking and abundant, and considering the perfect boundary 

 of the moraines near the base of Mt. Twynam, extensively described 

 above and carefully delineated upon the map, it is my opinion that 

 here the last of the glaciers existed, when the ice-cap that probably 

 covered the whole area of the plateau became separated into inde- 

 pendent ice-streams. If Australia participated in a great southern 

 glaciation, to which opinions, after other recent discoveries, seem 

 to tend more than ever, it is but natural that the highest parts of 

 it should have retained the ice longest, and considering that even 

 now the summer heat is not sutficient to remove all the accumu- 

 lating snow completely, the reduction of the glaciers must have 

 been extraordinarily slow, although the highest peaks of the 

 Snowy Mountains rise but little over 7000 feet above the sea. 



What surprises me not a little is the fact that several eminent 

 men who visited these mountains, and passed almost over exactly 

 the same track as I did, should have overlooked the proofs that 

 lay so manifestly plain below their feet. The many doubts that 

 had been thrown upon the probability of glacier traces existing in 

 Australia, together with the positive assertion by one geologist 

 that he had not found any moraines, whilst he must have walked 

 over nearly a dozen of them, prevented me from making some of 

 the statements contained in this paper known four years ago, after 

 my first visit to Mt. Kosciusko. I was always desirous to revisit 

 these localities to convince myself of the correctness of the opinion 

 formed at that time, which recently I have more than fully accom- 

 plished. 



The occurrence of gold at the bottom of the glacier deposits on 

 the eastern end of the plateau and beyond it is noteworthy. 

 Fairly payable patches were found along Piper's Creek and 

 Digger's Creek. At both these places a few parties were work- 

 ing still, and during the last ten years some miners have from 

 time to time worked in these localities. At Boggy Plain a party 

 was prospecting during my last stay, and had obtained particles 



