1412 RESEARCH COMMITTEES. 
that these glacial beds may be of Permo-Carboniferous age. 
Stratigraphical and lithological evidence, therefore, is not opposed 
to the theory that the friable kaolin sandstone may date back to 
Permo-Carboniferous time. 
The age, however, of the kaolin sandstone may not be by any 
means synchronous with that of the overlying glacial deposit. 
Professor Spencer and Mr. Byrne are of opinion that the glaciated 
pebbles had not weathered out of the kaolin sandstone, and they 
were unable to find any glaciated pebbles im sitw in the kaolin 
sandstone. 
There may not, however, be any considerable difference in the 
age of the two deposits, and, in that case, they may both be 
referable to some late portion of the Paleeozoic or some portion of 
the Mesozoic era.* 
IV. Geographical Position. 
Yellow Cliff is on the right side of the Valley of the Finke, or 
Larapinta, as the aborigines call it. It is situated in longitude 
134° 5’ E., and latitude 26° S. With the exception, therefore, 
of the very doubtful glacial localities in Brazil, it is nearer the 
Equator than any other locality in the Southern Hemisphere 
where undoubted traces of Pre-Tertiary glaciation have hitherto 
been observed. In Southern Africa, the northernmost point to 
which evidences of Pre-Tertiary glaciation have been traced, is, 
as far as we are aware, the junction of the Vaal and Orange 
Rivers, and Weltevreden’s Farm, near the same locality. At the 
latter spot, Mr. E. J. Dunn, formerly Government Geologist of 
Cape Colony, discovered glacial conglomerates, underlying sand- 
stones containing Gangamopteris, and therefore referable to the 
Dwyka Conglomerates, and at the former locality, in 1885, he 
found a striated pavement. This is in latitude 29° 8., and longi- 
tude about 23° 40’ E. 
The age of this glaciation is Permo-Carboniferous. 
Presumptive evidence of ice action far north in Australia, in 
Pre-Tertiary time, has previously been adduced, from the Bowen 
River Coal field, of Queensland, in latitude 23° §., longitude _ 
about 149° E.t 
* Speaking for himself, the secretary is inclined to think that the association of glaciated 
pebbles with the ‘ tumultuously-bedded ” kaolin sandstones is, in itself, evidence in favour 
of the Permo-Carboniferous age of the glaciation. Nevertheless, the time which has elapsed 
since Middle and Late Mesozoic, and even early Tertiary time, is so vast as to render it 
impossible probably now to restore the past physical features of Central Australia as they 
were in Jurassic, Cretaceous, or Eocene time. The possibility of the existence of inland 
ranges in Australia, at any of the above-mentioned periods, sufficiently high to form a 
gathering ground for glaciers, must not be excluded. He considers, however, that on the 
whole, evidence at present, slender as it is, is in favour of a Permo-Carboniferous age for 
these traces of glaciation in Central Australia. 
+Report on the Bowen River Coal-field, by Robert L. Jack, p. 7, paragraph 39. By 
authority : Brisbane, 1879.. Also Pres. Address to Geology Section, by T. W. Edgeworth 
David: Austr. Assoc. Adyt. Sci. Brisbane, 1895. Vol. v1, pp. 63-64. 
