Wynne — Presidential Address. 303 



have been found. The general opinion seems to he that these 

 pebbles, which are all derived from unknown or distant sources, 

 have been sculptured elsewhere and brought to their present 

 situation, enclosed in floating ice through the agency of river 

 transport. 



So many people have been engaged upon the subject of the 

 glacial relations of these beds that considerable controversy might 

 have been anticipated and has occurred, both as to the precise age 

 of the deposits, and as to the actual fact of the glaciation of their 

 transported fragments. Time would not permit of my following 

 these discussions, but I may summarise the conclusions of the latest 

 contribution to the general subject by Dr. Waagen 1 who (as 

 usual) contends vigorously for the glacial character of the whole 

 of these boulder-beds, and thence for the existence of a Carboni- 

 ferous to a Permian glacial period, affecting a quarter of the earth's 

 surface, or even much more, this ancient ice-age being regarded 

 as of quite as great, or greater, importance than that of the Pleis- 

 tocene glacial period. 



The theory advanced by Dr. Waagen has been constructed, so 

 to speak, upon Sclater and Haeckel's lost continent of Lemuria 

 (also referred to by Mr. H. F. Blanford, /. c), which is supposed 

 at one time or another to have united both Africa and Australia 

 with the Indian peninsula. This great continent is supposed to 

 have been but slightly disturbed after its materials were deposited 

 upon folded Archsean rocks, and its features to have been sculptured 

 mainly by denudation, which eventually divided the continental 

 land into smaller areas, these originating, utider severe climatal 

 conditions, glaciers and large rivers. In the upper carboniferous 

 period the cold became intense over the region south of the equator, 

 but in Permian time, regarded by Dr. Waagen as but a portion of 

 the Carboniferous period, the conditions of great cold extended 

 northwards embracing Europe, and enveloped the whole earth 

 except South America, becoming again prominently displayed in 

 the Permian Hawkesbury beds of Australia. Under these cold 

 conditions the delicate flora of the carboniferous age perished, 

 though its marine fauna survived longer ; and the plants having 



1 "The Carboniferous Glacial Period" (translated), liec. Geol. Surv. Ind., vol. xxi., 

 pt. 3, 1888. 



