376 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION C. 



6.— THE GLACIAL DEPOSITS OF THE BACCHUS 

 MARSH DISTRICT. 



Btj GEO. SWEET, F.G.S., and GHAS. 0. BRITTLEBAXK. 

 Plates XII. and XIII. 



The great and general interest that associates around all ancient 

 as well as modern glacial phenomena, and the recent publication of 

 certain articles referring to the above locality which, if they have 

 not already misled students of such phenomena, have created diffi- 

 culties where none existed, and increased the labor of more cautious 

 observers, and which, it is thought, call for important and speedy _ 

 modifications, are our reasons for contributing the present paper to 

 to this Association. 



The district of Bacchus Marsh has, since it was first visited 

 and described by Mr. (afterwards Sii-) Richard Daintree, possessed 

 great interest to geologists. Several gentlemen — including the 

 early officers of the Geological Department, Mr. R. Daintree, 

 Mr. (afterwards Sir) A. R. C. Selwyn, the late S. C. Wilkinson, 

 F.G.S., and others, and of the later officers, R. A. F. Murray, 

 F.G.S., E. J. Dunn, and lastly, Messrs. G. Officer and L. Balfour 

 — have written of various parts or features of the district. Of 

 all the early geologists that mentioned this deposit, none found 

 striated stones*' till the later officers of the department observed 

 tkem in the conglomerates near Darley and Bacchus Marsh, and 

 no writers appear to have recognised the close relationship of the 

 sandstone with the conglomerates, or the great development of both. 



But the residence in the northern part of this area for the past 

 five years — that known as the Pentland Hills, lying between Bacchus 

 Marsh and the Dividing Ranges — of one of the writers of this 

 paper, Mr. C. C. Brittlebank, has caused this part of the district to 

 receive more particular attention than it had before claimed. He 

 had observed flattened, polished, and striated stones in several parts 

 of the surface beyond the area of the conglomerates, where they 

 had been found previously, and many hundred feet above them, so 

 that, anticipating the excursion of the Field Naturalists' Club of 

 Victoria to the Werribee Gorge, which is formed through these 

 rocks, in October, 1891, he requested that a geologist should be 

 included in the visiting party. Mr. A. J. Campbell, the leader for 

 the occasion, requested the other writer of this jjaper to go, and he 

 consented, when both writers met in the field. We had not been 

 there long before the whole party were brought up by the obser- 

 vance of the first flattened and striated pebble seen on that 

 occasion, of the kind which has since been fouud in such abundance. 

 We then commenced and have since continued working together, 

 with the intention of making the results of our investigations known 

 at as early a date as possible, and as much was hinted by the leader 



»See R. A. F. Murray's Geology, p. 87. 



