Fauna and Flora of New Zealand. 95 



last year I mentioned this elevation as necessary to explain 

 the flora of the Kermadec Islands, but I had to postpone the 

 proofs of it until now. 



It appears therefore that, so far as New Zealand is con- 

 cerned, Mr. Wallace is incorrect in his statement already 

 quoted, that the (races of ancient glaciers " point to a period 

 so recent that it must almost certainly have been contempo- 

 raneous with the glacial epoch of the northern hemisphere." 



Let us now turn to Australia. In Tasmania there appear 

 to be several glacier lakes, but I have seen no description of 

 any moraines. Lake Omeo, in the Australian Alps, may also 

 have had the same origin ; but it must not be forgotten that 

 in a dry climate like Australia the wind may excavate rock- 

 basins. A glacial epoch, however, is not required to account 

 for rock-basins among mountains. Whether Australia has 

 undergone the rigours of a glacial epoch is a moot question with 

 Australian geologists. Mr. Tenison- Woods* and Mr. Howittf 

 can find no traces of it ; while Prof. R. Tate is of the contrary 

 opinion, and instances striated rock-surfaces and small granite 

 erratics on the beach at Black Point, Holdfast Bay, near Ade- 

 laide!, but he considers all these to be of Pliocene age. This 

 is in lat. 35° S., only one degree south of Sydney. Prof. 

 Tate also describes parallel grooves and scratches running 

 east and west in the rocks in the bed of the Inman, Cape 

 Jarvis; and on these grooves Mr. Selwyn had previously 

 remarked that they strongly reminded him of similar grooves 

 he had so frequently seen in the mountains of North Wales. 

 Mr. G. S. Griffiths has also lately read a paper to the Royal 

 Society of Victoria, " On the Evidences of a Glacier Epoch 

 in Victoria during Post-Miocene Times." Mr. Griffiths 

 allows that the evidence is not altogether satisfactory, con- 

 sisting as it chieflj does of the wide distribution of clays with 

 gravels and boulders, for the most part well water-worn ; but 

 he considers that a Pliocene glaciation offers the best explana- 

 tion of the facts. If the glacial theory is rejected, he says, 

 " we shall have to believe that since the Pliocene era com- 

 menced Victoria has been elevated and depressed to a con- 

 siderable extent at least five or six times " (p. 26). It seems 

 to me, however, that one subsidence, varied with several slight 

 upward oscillations, is all that is required ; and as in Victoria 

 marine Pliocene rocks occur up to 1720 feet above the sea§, 



* Proc. Linn. Soc. of X. S. Wales, vii. p. 382. 



t Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. xxxv. p. 35. 



I Trans. Rov. Soc. S. Australia, l*7*-79, Anniversarv Address. 



§ Lock's ' Gold,' p. 931, quoted by -Mr. Griffiths, p. 22. 



