220 WALTER HOWCHIN 
years (XXXV, pp. 663-64), and that the period of maximum 
glaciation might be roughly estimated as occurring from 100,000 
years to 200,000 years ago; but that the newer glaciation is sepa- 
rated from the present day by only some 10,000 years or 20,000 
years. 
TASMANIA 
Physiographically Tasmania belongs to the eastern highlands 
of the Australian continent, from which it became separated by 
the Senkungsfeld of Bass Strait. The island consists of a great 
central plateau having an elevation of from 2,000 feet to 5,000 
feet above sea level. Surrounding this central plateau is a still 
more extensive tableland, with an elevation from 1,200 feet to 
2,000 feet, from which rise important mountain ranges and isolated 
peaks that reach elevations up to nearly 5,000 feet. As, within 
comparatively recent times, the Australian Alps of the mainland 
carried permanent ice-fields at levels below those of the higher 
mountains of Tasmania, it was reasonable to expect that the latter, 
situated some 5° or 6° farther south, would at the same period be 
ice-clad. 
The testimony of early observers with respect to a Pleistocene 
glaciation in Tasmania was somewhat conflicting, and some con- 
fusion arose from the presence of an older glaciation, of Permo- 
Carboniferous age, occurring in close proximity to the newer 
glaciation. 
The first definite evidences of a comparatively recent glaciation 
of Tasmania were obtained by E. J. Dunn and T. B. Moore who 
visited the West Coast Range, in company, in 1892, and published 
separate accounts of their observations in 1894 (XXXVII and 
XXXVIII). The West Coast Range runs north from the inlet 
of Macquarie Harbor, parallel with the coast, from which it is 
distant about 15 miles. The range is drained by the King River 
on its eastern flanks, and by the Queen River on its western. 
These mountains are capped, for the most part, with a very sili- 
ceous conglomerate of supposed Devonian age, which, from the 
nature of the rock, has preserved to the fullest extent such evidences 
of glaciation as occur in the polishing, grooving, and striation 
of rock surfaces. The valleys and lower slopes of the range 
