12 



Further Discoveries of Glacial Remains 

 IN South Australia. 



By Walter Howchin, F.G.S. 

 [Read May 3, 1898.] 



The Inman and Hindmarsh Rivers enter the sea within one- 

 and-a-half miles from each other at Encounter Bay, with the town 

 of Port Victor situated between their outlets. The Inman takes 

 its rise in the Bald Hills and follows a E.S.E. course, whilst the 

 Hindmarsh River rises in a series of springs among the " Tiers," 

 twelve miles north of Port Victor, and has a course almost due 

 north and south. 



In a previous paper read before the Society* it has been shown 

 that the Inman valley carries abundant evidences of former 

 glacial conditions, and that the trend of the ice was from south to 

 north. Ice-borne stones have been traced rounding Cape Jervis, 

 and studding the eastern shores of the Gulf. Similar erratics 

 have been carried overland, across the Cape Jervis peninsula, 

 and northward as far as Hallets Cove, at least fifty miles from 

 their source. All the evidence thus obtained pointed to the fact 

 that the granite ridge of the southern coast had been a centre of 

 dispersion for the ice, and as the Hindmarsh Valley, like the 

 Inman, is included in the radii from this centre, it seemed highly 

 probable that it would supply additional proofs of the extent of 

 this extinct icefield. 



To test this point by direct observation, I spent a few days 

 last month in a walking tour through the Hindmarsh Valley and 

 Ranges, across to Myponga and Sellick's Hill. The superficial 

 deposits to some extent mask the geological features of the 

 Valley, yet the results show that the Hindmarsh Valley has been 

 under an equal measure of glaciation as the Inman Valley. 



The geological formations of the district are as follows : — 



Recent. — 1. River wash, consisting mainly of fine silt. 



Newer Tertiary. — 2. Horizontal beds of variegated marls and 

 sands, with thin lenticular beds of fine gravel. 



Older Tertiary. — 3. Pink - coloured fossiliferous limestone 

 (limited to the head waters of the Hindmarsh). 



* Trans. Roy. Soc, IS. Aus., xxi, p. 61. 



