Account of Glacial Deposits of Bacchus Marsh. 59 



shattered surfjice of the underlying rock is " stuffed " with 

 erratic stones and boulders. 



The conckision, then, to which we are led is, that the 

 deposits we have been considering constitute a true till, or 

 moraine protbnde. This is borne out by further considei'a- 

 tions. It is worthy of note, that the stones occurring in 

 tliis till, at the quarr}' we have heen speaking about, are not 

 nearly so well striated as those occurring in the region of 

 the Werribee Gorge. In the former case, we have seen that 

 the underlying sandstone is very soft, and would not striate 

 stones well ; on the other hand, the underlying rocks in the 

 i-egion of the Gorge are much harder, consisting to a great 

 extent of conglomei'ates, just the kind of rocks that would 

 produce marked scorings on the stones of the till. 



These are specific evidence against the iceberg theory. 

 There are also more general arguments. These arguments 

 have been used l>efore to refute the iceberg hypothesis of the 

 origin of the boulder-clay in the Northern Hemisphere, and 

 they ap|)ly equally well hei-e. 



Mr. Dunn describes the so-called glacial conglomerate, 



besides being found at Bacchus Marsh, as occurring on both 



sides of the Dividing Range, at Wahgunj^ah, Rutherglen, 



The Springs, El Dorado, Wooragee, Tarrawingee, Badda- 



ginnie, at various points on the road between Wangaratta and 



Kilmore, north east of Costeriield, Wild Duck Creek (west 



of Heathcote), underlying the auriferous deposits at Caris- 



l))-ook and Oreswick. South of the Dividing Range, it is 



met with about four miles east of Gordons, Barrabool Hills, 



and near Foster in South Gi]ipsland. Thus it will be seen 



that the deposit is widely distributed, and it appears to be 



of ccjnsiderable thickness, beino- over 100 ft. in several 

 1 • 'ft 



known instances. 



It has been shown (CroU, " Climate and Time ;" 

 Geikie, " Great Ice Age," etc.), that the amoui.t of material 

 carried by icebergs is quite inconsiderable, and what is 

 carried genei-ally consists of rubbish and angular blocks 

 that have fallen on the surface of the parent glacier. 

 In the case of the ice-sheet that is at present desolating 

 Greenland, the surface of the ice is ver}' free from debiis of 

 any kind, and so it is quite a rare thing to find an iceberg 

 shed from one of the vast glaciers of that countiy bearing 

 any material at all. Yet a tremendous amount of erosion 

 must be going on, and the eroded material is being accumu- 

 lated beneath the ice as a moraine profonde, although 



