74 



friable a rock that the period of their transposition by ice is 

 of a very recent date. As there are conclusive proofs that 

 the whole mountain chain comprising the West Coast Range 

 has been covered with a vast sheet of ice, we must conclude 

 that rivers of ice have flowed down the damp, sunless, slate 

 gorges of the King River, collecting as they went masses of 

 sandstone from the surrounding heights, leaving them at a, 

 altitude of not more than 100ft. above sea level in their 

 present shape and position at the Upper Landing and 

 Harvey's Creek, distant about four to five miles from the 

 range. 



In the same locality, on the southern bank of the river, 

 150ft. above its bed, a large moraine occurs, composed of 

 rocks brought from the inland mountains. Here we find 

 mica slates, large boulders of greenstone, and many other 

 formations not met with in the country west of the coast 

 range. These boulders and pebbles are embedded in a clay 

 or slaty matrix, and have been brought down the river gorge, 

 probably at the beginning of our glacial period, before the 

 erosion of the present bed of the stream. 



During the recent substantial improvements to the Strahan- 

 Lyell highway, a very interesting phenomenon of our glacial 

 action has been exposed, through the accumulation of 

 rubbish and moss being removed from the cuttings and 

 drains of the road. As this phenomenon is so accessible on 

 the way to the greatest mine in the island, which many 

 scientists and geologists are sure to visit, it is to be hoped 

 that more able men than myself will give views as to its age, 

 origin, and nature. 



A moraine commences about one mile from Strahan, and 

 extends along the road towards Mount Lyell for a mile and 

 three-quarters in width. A portion of the moraine near the 

 surface is composed of yellow clay containing a few embedded 

 pebbles : this rests on a recently formed conglomerate, with a 

 binding of the same coloured matter, in other parts the yellow 

 colour gives place to a conglomeration of pebbles in a blue 

 slaty or clayey nature. 



The texture of the binding material or "till" is fine and of 

 rock-like hardness. It contains pebbles of all sizes, from mere 

 atoms up to boulders a foot in diameter ; the stones are either 

 rounded, grooved, or planed, and many are covered with, 

 scratches and scored in various cross directions. All are of 

 local origin, as no rock foreign to the West Coast can be 

 found. Sheared pebbles of conglomerate and quartzite, similar 

 to those found by Mr. E. J. Dunn, F.Gr.S., anil myself in and 

 derived from the Devonian conglomerate round Mounts 

 Tyndall and Sedgwick are embedded in the moraine matter. 



At two and a half miles from Strahan, in a cutting of the 

 road a quarter of a mile from where the " till " is last trace- 



