SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XXI. No 532 



SCIENCE: 



Published by N. D. C. HODGES, 87; Broadway. New York. 



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GLA.CIATION IN AUSTRALIA. 



BY T. S. HALL, CASTLEMAINE, VICTORIA, AUSTRALIA. 



Evidences of one or more glacial epochs are plainly visible 

 in Australia, and the nacre closely is study directed to the sub- 

 ject, the more widely spread are the glacial deposits found to 

 be. As long ago as 1861 Selwyn, then the Director of the 

 Geological Survey of Victoria, noted that several conglomerate 

 beds in various parts of the colony were evidently the re.<!u]ts of 

 ice-action, although no striated stones were visible. In 1877 

 Professor Tate of Adelaide announced the discovery of a glaciated 

 surface near that city, and toward the close of 1889 Mr. E. J. 

 Dunn found grooved stones in Victoria. Since then the Mining 

 Department of Victoria has issued a report by Mr. Dunn of 

 one of these conglomerate beds near H'eathcote. The deposit 

 covers about 36 square miles, and consists of a base composed of 

 dark indurated clay, through which are scattered masses oC rocks 

 of various kinds— granites, syenites, gneisses, schists, quarzites, 

 slates, shales, conglomerates, etc., etc. Many of the granites are 

 not known in Victoria, in situ, and their origin can only be 

 guessed at at present. In one or two places glaciated surfaces 

 are seen and the strise run north and south. The largest "er- 

 ratic " known is a l>lock of extra -Victorian granite, weighing 

 about 30 tons. The thickness of the beds is estimated at about 

 400 feet. The bed rock is of Lower Silurian age, and is tilted 

 at a high angle. Inlercalated beds of sandstone occur in places, 

 and show the deposit to be still nearly horizontal. In a paper 

 recently read before the Royal Society of Victoria, Messrs. OiHcer 

 and Balfour record grooved pebbles, "contorted till, "and glaciated 

 surfaces near Bacchus Marsh. The deposit there has, moreover, 

 been heavily faulted. 



The age of the Victorian deposits has not been precisely fixed 

 as yet. At Bacchus Marsh the beds are overlain by fresh water 

 sandstones containing Gangamopteris, Schizoneura, and Zeugo- 

 phylletes (?), and which are stated by M'Coy to be of Triassic 

 age. The age of the glacial beds is then perhaps Paleeoioic No 

 fossil remains have as yet been found in the glacial beds them- 

 selves, but doubtless careful washing of the clays will yield evi- 

 dences of life, as it has done in other countries. Small outliers 

 of these beds are found widely scattered over the colony, from 

 north to south, and on both sides of the Dividing Range. 

 They extend into New South Wales, and may be looked for, 

 Dunn says, at the foot of the western slopes of the Great Divide 

 Similar beds occur on the eastern edge of the great Queensland 

 Downs 



Mr. Dunn draws a parallel between these beds and the Dwyka 

 conglomerates of South Africa, which are of Triassic age. If 

 the parallel prove a good one, then we have evidence of an en- 

 ormous extent of glaciation at the close of the Palseozoic 

 or the beginning of the Mesozoic, extending nearer the equator 

 than that of the Northern Hemisphere, during the last great ice 

 age. The South Australian beds at Hallett's Cove, near Ade- 

 laide, before alluded to, are of Tertiary age. Here the glacier 

 path can be traced for about two miles, and moraine debris is in 

 abundance. Traces of more recent glacial action are recorded 

 from the neighborhood of Mount Koscius Ko, but these are of 

 local origin, and are perhaps due to a greater elevation of the re- 

 gion, as no glaciers exist in Australia at the present lime. 



SECRETS OF THE ATMOSPHERE. 



BT H. A. HAZEN, WASHINGTON, D. 0. 



In the March number of the American Meteorological Journal, 

 Professor Harrington treats at some length the subject, " Ex- 

 ploration of the Free Air." and urges the great necessity of such 

 an enterprise. For more than eight years the present writer has 

 insisted that by no other means will it be possible to set the sci- 

 ence of meteorology upon a i3rm basis and rid it of mere specula- 

 tions and theories which too often have served to prevent its 

 advance in the past. Professor Harrington quotes a graphic 

 description of an experience of the aeronaut Wise, in which he 

 seemed to be thrown or attra,cted back and forth in an ominous 

 thunder-cloud. Several such have been described by aeronauts, 

 who unfortunately had not the instruments requisite to give very 

 necessary information in these cases and to make them of avail 

 in a scientific study. The description of these mysteries make 

 us long for something more tangible and definite. 



To my mind there is no research of so great importance in the 

 whole range of science as that of a few well conducted ascensions, 

 with accurate instruments, in the midst cf a rain-storm and on all 

 sides of a low area. Ordinarily, balloon voyages have been made 

 during clear weather and for the benefit of a great assemblage, 

 so that this Held, or the problem of ascertaining the secrets of the 

 air, has been almost entirely neglected up to the present. A 

 single illustration will show the extreme necessity of systematic 

 %vork in this line. 



It may not be generally understood that there has been an ex- 

 traordinary revolution in meteorology within the past six years. 

 During this revolution the whole convection hypothesis of storm 

 generation, without the least doubt the most important of all 

 the theories of orthodox meteorology, has been attacked and 

 completely overthrown. The significance of this defeat cannot 

 be exaggerated and should be fully set forth, The convection 

 theory is fully advanced in Professor Ferrel's last book, published 

 in 1890, "A Popular Treatise on the Winds,'' p. 228. '• On account 

 of the non-homogeneity of the earth's surface, comprising hills 

 and valleys, land and water, and dry and marshy areas, all with 

 different radiating and absorbing powers, and also on account of 

 the frequently irregular and varying distribution of clouds, it must 

 often happen that there are considerable local departures of 

 temperature from that of the surrounding parts ; and if it should 

 so happen, as it frequently must, that this area is of a somewhat 

 circular form, and the air has a temperature higher than that of 

 the surrounding part of the atmosphere, then we have the con- 

 ditions required to give rise to a vertical circulation, with art 

 ascending cuorent in the interior, as described above. But unless 

 there is some source of heat by which this interior higher tem- 

 pernture is kept up, this circulation soon ceases, for the inter- 

 change of air between the interior and exterior parts of the air 

 comprised in the circulation tends to continually reduce the dif- 

 ference of temperature upon which the circulation depends, and 

 to bring all parts to the same temperature. ... In the case of a 

 moist atmosphere with the unstable state for dry air, we have the- 

 same en?rgy for originating and maintaining a vertical circula- 

 tion as in the case of dry air, with the additional energy of all 

 the latent heat of the aqueous vapor set free in its condensatiora 



