32 Proceedings of the Royal Society oj Victoria. 



furnish more conclusive evidence of glacial agency in the 

 geological history of Tasmania than I have met with elsewhere, 

 and they strongly corroborate the testimony afforded by the 

 seemingly erratic boulders which occur at various points in the 

 basin of the S. Esk." 



Mr. Montgomery, in speaking of these conglomerates, says^ : — 

 " In New South Wales it has been noted that both above 

 and below the Greta Coal Series, which corresponds with 

 the Mersey Coal Measures of Tasmania, there occur layers of 

 erratic boulders, probably deposited by ice during periods of 

 continued low temperature in the Southern Hemisphere. These 

 cold periods might supply an explanation of the paucity of fossils 

 in the Wynyard formation, and ice action would likewise 

 account for the occurrence of large and heavy boulders in it in a 

 mudstone matrix, instead of the more usual one of coarse sand 

 and gravel, which is the ordinary result of the sorting of detrital 

 material by wave action. During my examination, however, T 

 did not see any bouldei's exhibiting ice striation, or of such 

 size as not to be accountable for by the ordinary forces at work 

 on every sea shore." 



Besides the rocks already mentioned by him Mr. Stephens 

 gays: — "Among the rolled pebbles which line portions of the 



beach near Table Cape there have been found from time 



to time fragments of a hard compact shale, varying in color from 

 dark brown to dull black, and so closely resembling the so-called 

 'kerosene shale' of Hartley, N.S.W., both in appearance and 

 behaviour under the simple tests to which I have subjected it, 



that they may be considered identical and the discovery 



at different points of several specimens all identical in character, 

 force us to the conclusion that it is of Pre-Tertiary age, and that 

 portions of the series from which it has come, though removed by 

 denudation near the coast line, will one day be found at no great 

 distance inland." 



Mr. Montgomery, also, referring to these loose fragments of 

 coal found on the beach near Wynyard, says- that "high up in 

 it " (the Wynyard formation) " the fossiliferous beds and the coal 

 seam may yet be found." 



1 Loc. eit. 



2 Loc. cit. 



