46 GEOLOGICAL NOTES ON KOSCIUSKO, 



If, therefore, the gLaciation of this ridge was the work of the 

 Snowy River glacier or ice sheet, the surface of the sheet, if its 

 inclination was o°, must have been probably at its starting point, 

 if situated close to Kosciusko Observatory, as high as 7,450 feet, 

 that is, as the level of the Observatory is 7,328 feet, over 100 feet 

 above the level of the Observatory, probably a far-fetched 

 hypothesis. 



The culminating point, however, of the ice sheet on the 

 Kosciusko Plateau, during the maximum glaciation, need not 

 necessarily have coincided with the present highest point of the 

 land, and may have lain at some point between the Observatory 

 and Lake Albina. In this case the ice in the Snowy Valley may 

 have been about 650 feet to 700 feet or more in thickness opposite 

 Townsend's Pass. 



If, on the other hand, the ridge near Lake Albina was glaciated 

 by ice coming from the direction of Mount Townsend, such ice 

 at a fall of 3° would barely have overflowed Townsend's Pass, the 

 level of which is 6,650 feet, the distance from the glaciated ridge 

 being half a mile, and its level 6,850 feet. The distance from 

 Mount Townsend to the glaciated ridge is about half a mile, the 

 level of Mount Townsend 7,260 and that of the ridge 6,850 feet. 

 At a fall of 3°, that is 278 feet per mile and consequently 140 

 feet per half-mile, on the assumption that the ice was 50 feet 

 thick on top of the glaciated ridge, this would bring the top of 

 the ice below Mount Townsend to a level of 7,040 feet, which is 

 a, by no means improbable height for it to have attained. 



In this case, which seems the less hypothetical of the two 

 assumptions, the ice in the Snowy River Valley need not have 

 been thicker than about the difference in level between Townsend's 

 Pass and the bottom of the Snowy Valley opposite to it, viz. 300 

 feet. Whichever hypothesis be adopted, the thickness of ice in 

 the Lake Albina Valley during the glaciation of the ridge west 

 of Lake Albina would be the same, viz., about 500 feet. This 

 agrees closely with the thickness of the ice in the Lake 



