108 THE GLACIER EPOCH OF AUSTRALASIA. 
South Wales, and with the Talchir and Salt Range ice-borne 
conglomerates of India, whose position is known to beof Permo- 
Carboniferous age. Other observers, notably Mr. J. E. Dunn, 
F.G.S., have conclusively shown by the abundant proofs of 
glacial action that the conglomerates of this region have been 
transported thither by floating ice, as in the case of the con- 
elomerates and erratics of a similar horizon in New South 
Wales and Tasmania. 
Mr. Dunn states that the conglomerate is spread over a 
wide area on both sides of the dividing range, and particularly 
at Bacchus Marsh, Wooragee, Wahgunyah, Rutherglen, The 
Springs, El Dorado, Tarrawinga, Badaginnie, Wild Duck 
Creek, Carisbrook, and the Gordons. Its thickness is stated 
to be over 100 feet at Bacchus Marsh and in a shaft at 
Wooragee, 
It contains granites in great variety, gneiss, schist, quartz 
rock, etc., the great mass being derived, as in Tasmania, from 
schistose and other ancient rocks. The material, Mr. Dunn 
states, ‘ ranges in size from the finest silt up to great blocks 
several feet across, and weighing in some cases probably from 
20 Zo 30 ions. 
“From the well rounded, almost polished pebble boulder 
to the rough angular fragment of rock that has been torn 
from its parent mass, and not subsequently abraded, all are 
represented in these conglomerates.” Elsewhere Mr. Dunn 
states that “Not only are the pebbles, etc., scored and 
scratched, but great numbers are rubbed on one or more sides 
(facetted).” From the occurrence of the same genus of ferns 
(either Glossopteris or Gangamopteris) occurring in similar ice- 
borne conglomerates in the Dwyka’s or Ecca beds of South 
Africa and in New South Wales, Mr. Dunn believes them to 
be of the same age, 7z.e., Permo-Carbontferous. 
Other Countries—Similar evidence of glacial action in the 
corresponding Permian of England has long been made known 
to geologists by Mr. Ramsay. 
Thus in England; Talchir and Salt Range, India ; Dwyka 
conglomerates, South Africa ; Bacchus Marsh conglomerates, 
Victoria; and in similar conglomerates in New South Wales 
and Tasmania, we have abundant evidence in rocks of the 
same Permo-Carboniferous age in widely separated regions of 
both hemispheres, that a general refrigeration of climate oc- 
curred near to the close of the Permo-Carboniferous age, indi- 
cating that a general refrigeration of climate of great intensity 
existed, probably due to exceptional combination of astronomical, 
physical, and geographical causes, as in the glacier and glacial 
epochs of Pliocene and Pleistocene ages respectively ; and we may, 
therefore, safely term the older period in which such phenomena 
has occurred—the ancient glacial epoch of Permo-Carbontferous age. 
