BY PROP. DAVID, RICHARD HELMS, AND E. P. PITTMAN. 65 



being about 2,500 feet above the sea, the lowering of the temper- 

 ature ma}^ have been somewhere about 15° to 16^ Fahr. This 

 estimate assumes, of course, that since the glaciation tho Kosci- 

 usko Plateau altitude has not been appreciably affected by crustal 

 movements or by denudation, and that in other respects meteoro- 

 logical conditions in the past have resembled those of the present 

 {g) As regards collateral evidences, in the Southern Hemisphere, 

 of glaciation in late Cainozoic time, Tasmania shows a lowering 

 of the snow line by about at least 2,500 to 3,000 feet, possibly as 

 much as 4,000 feet, if Mr. T. B. Moore's views as to the age of 

 the moraines near sea-level in the neighbourhood of Macquarie 

 Harbour oi\ West Coast of Tasmania are correct. This might mean 

 a lowering of the temperture by about 1 2° Fahr., subject, of course, 

 to assumptions similar to those just made in the case of Kosciusko. 

 In New Zealand the evidence adduced shows that the glaciers in 

 the South Island on the east side of the Alps came down to probably 

 at least 3,000 to 4,000 feet below their present terminations. 

 Captain Hutton, however, argues that this did not necessarily 

 imply a general lowering of the snow line to the same amount. 

 He thinks that the extension of the glaciers in New Zealand in 

 late Cainozoic time was due, as already stated, to the South Island 

 at that time standing 3,000 to 4,000 feet higher than it does at 

 present. He states emphatically, " The biological evidence is 

 therefore to the effect that the ocean round New Zealand has not 

 been much colder than at present ever since the Miocene Period.""^ 

 Even biological evidence, however, is not always reliable, as 

 Charles Darwin has pointed out.f 



* Kept. Aust. Assoc. Adv. Sci. Vol. v. 1893, p. 240. 



t Naturalist's Voyage Koimd the World, 1882, p. 243. "A large Voluta 

 is abundant in Southern Terra del Fuego and the Falkland Islands. At 

 Bahia Blanca, in lat. 39° S. , the most abundant shells were three species of 

 Oliva (one of large size), one or two Volutas, and a Terebra. Now these are 

 among the best characterised tropical forms. It is doubtful whether even 

 one small species of Oliva exists on the southern shores of Europe, and there 

 are no species of the two other genera. If a geologist were to find in lat. 39° on 

 the coast of Portugal a bed containing numerous shells belonging to three 

 species of Oliva, to a Voluta and a Terebra, he would probably assert that the 

 climate at the period of their existence must have been tropical ; but judging 

 from South America such an inference might be erroneous." 

 5 



