18 THE VICTORIAX NATURALIST. 



wards. Meanwhile news came of Snowden's success, and that 

 Mr. Riggall, of Glen Falloch station, had also reached the lake. 

 Accordingly Mr. Howitt saw that the Macallister and Wellington 

 route was the most practicable, and in a fourth attempt succeeded 

 in reaching the lake with his black friend, at Easter, 1887. 

 Mr. Howitt pubUshed accounts of his trip in the papers, and 

 others were now tempted to visit this remarkable district. Mr. 

 Riggall took up a party of thirty ; they led down, however, only a 

 single pack-horse to the lake. The Misses May and Annie 

 Howitt, with their father, at Christmas time, 1887, made another 

 vain attempt to reach the goal by way of the Mount Angus Range, 

 but in the following February, 1888, they were successful, taking 

 this time the Macallister route, and rode triumphantly down to 

 the shores of the lake, where we found evidence of their visit in 

 certain commemorative inscriptions. 



It was seen then that the lake was held up in the valley by 

 a comparatively low and level barrier of rocky boulders. It re- 

 sembled nothing else of the kind known in Australia, but called 

 to mind the lakes of mountain districts in Europe, lying in a rock- 

 basin deeper in the middle than at the upper or the lower ends, 

 but with the further peculiarity that, while one creek was con- 

 stantly running into the upper end, and another clearly brought 

 in floods of rain and melted snow at intervals, there was no 

 outlet at all visible. The camping-ground at the lake is desper- 

 ately bad for horses, from its stony nature and lack of feed, and 

 Mr. Howitt was unable to examine fully the nature of the barrier, 

 or to descend the valley below in order to discover the mode 

 of issue of the water. The glaciation of the Australian Alps has 

 been a favourite topic of late years with our geologists, and while 

 the evidence hitherto brought forward of the existence of glaciers 

 in former times consisted only in boulders and striations of the 

 rocks, it seemed at first as if here was magnificent testimony in 

 the shape of a tarn held up by the terminal moraine of a glacier 

 in the basin which the glacier had excavated out of its rocky bed. 

 Such evidence would be decisive, and it became a matter of im- 

 portance to make a close investigation of the barrier and of the 

 valley below. 



Mr. Howitt had mentioned the matter to the other members of 

 the party, who felt considerable interest in the geological problem, 

 and who gladly agreed to join him in a fresh expedition, having 

 the further hope of making some good zoological finds in such an 

 out-of-way locality. It was a ticklish sort of place to venture 

 into, but we felt ourselves safe in the hands of such a veteran and 

 accomplished bushman as Mr. Howitt. 



Once or twice previously we had made our arrangements, but 

 each time some unforeseen contingency prevented us from carry 

 ing out our intentions. At last, however, all three of us succeeded 



