'lUH Frvceedimjs of the Royal Society of Victoria. 



place, tlie conglomerate was associated with a l)ed of rock 

 which was known to be of Mesozoic age. In the second 

 place, there were no Permian rocks described in Victoria, and 

 it was well known that there was a great break in the 

 sequence, the sandstor.es which were the Upper Devonian 

 rocks being the last rocks met with before reaching the 

 Mesozoic sandstones. There was no such break in the 

 neighbourhood of Sydney, where there was a complete 

 sequence from the Upper Devonian to the Oolite. On the 

 Sydney side the country was sinking and the deposits 

 accumulating, but in Victoria, the other end of the sea-saw, 

 the country' was elevated and erosion was going on. There- 

 fore, in Victoria, one did not look for Permian rocks, and if 

 this were a bed of Permian age, it was an interesting fact 

 which required more evidence than was at present avail- 

 able. Its association with the Mesozoic rocks had led 

 the Government geologists to associate it with the beds 

 above it with regai'd to age, and he did not see any 

 reason for disturbing that conclusion. With regard to 

 the upper glacial deposit, the deposit on top of the 

 Mesozoic sandstone, the rocks in the clay were of the 

 same lieterogeneous character, and included granites and 

 porphyries which were stiiated, and had all the general 

 characteristics of a glacial deposit ; but there was one very 

 great ditterence between the tvfo beds, as had been pointed 

 (jut by Mr. Cresswell. The lower bed lay upon a surface 

 that had liecn smoothed and planed apparently by the 

 action of ice, but the uppe}' bed lay upon a sandstone surface 

 as rugged and rough as a mountain peak; and in the 

 fractu]-es wliich were found in this rugged suriace hard clay, 

 very much like a boulder bed, and rocks, including granites, 

 had been jammed down hard, and presented a very different 

 appearau'ce indeed to the bed which lay below it upon the 

 Silurian. If the upper bed were due to glacial origiu, 

 certainly the circumstances were very different to those of 

 the lower bed. No heavy mass of ice had ever passed over 

 this till, because if it had, it would have planed all the soft 

 sandstone as smooth as the Silurian had been planed below 

 it. Therefore, if it were due to glacial action, the till and 

 rocks must have been deposited where they were now found 

 by the thin edge of the glacier, an edge which had no 

 weight, but which at the same time was sufficieutl}' strong 

 to cai-ry a burden of rocks and tip then; out Iaterall3^ This 

 was a possible explanation. It might also have been caused 



