124 Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria. 



simply tliis gravitated debris. Any appearance of i-ocJies mouton- 

 nees is quite absent ; on the contrary, whenever any of the bed- 

 rocks appear, they are invariably rough and rugged. The slopes 

 of both Mounts Owen and Lyell are studded with great masses 

 of conglomerate, which have moved down from above, and here 

 and there huge columns of rock, often with smaller blocks 

 perched on their summits, may be seen, and which have eA'idently 

 w^eathered into their present state in situ. 



Lake Beatrice lies some ten miles from the King River 

 Crossing, between Mount Sedgwick and Eldon Peak. It is in 

 the same line of drainage as Lakes Dora, Rolleston, and Spicer, 

 which lie to the north. A stream flows out of the lower end of 

 the lake, which, after a course of two or three miles, joins the 

 King River. This stream is remarkable for the immense size of 

 the boulders in its bed. Not only in the bed of the stream, but 

 on either side, spread over the low-lying ground, do these 

 boulders occur in great profusion. The accumulations show a 

 decided tendency to form ridges. The boulders consist prin- 

 cij^ally of a very hard grit or tine conglomerate, and many of 

 them must be tons in weight. The country here is so densely 

 covered by scrub (beech, sassafras, " horizontal," and bauera) 

 that we found it almost impossible to get any observations of 

 the bed-rock. 



The ridge-like form of the boulder accumulations at once 

 suggests a morainic origin. As Messrs. Dunn and Moore showed 

 last year, well-marked evidences of glaciation occur about Lake 

 Dora and the other lakes no great distance away ; and Lake 

 Beatrice, as already remarked, is in the same line of drainage ; 

 so it would not be surprising if these boulder accumulations 

 really owe their origin to glacial causes. The action of water 

 alone does not seem sufficient to account for their transport, 

 although it is true immense floods must have poured down this 

 valley when the upper parts were occupied by glaciers and 

 almost perpetual snow during the Pleistocene period. 



Mr. T. B. Moore states that the King River Valley is covered 

 with morainic matter. Numerous boulders of white sandstone, 

 up to two feet in diameter, many containing masses of brachiopod 

 fossils, are scattered over the valley, being generally concealed 

 by the peaty soil and thick button-grass. Some of this material 



