56 



FURTHER DISCOVERIES OF GLACIATION, WEST 

 COAST, TASMANIA. 

 By T. B. Mooee, F.R.G-.S. 

 (Read August 14, 1894. J 



Through the courtesy of Messrs. E. J. Dunn, R. M. 

 Johnston, and A. Morton I have received the two former 

 gentlemen's and Mr. Montgomery's papers of last year on 

 Glaciation. 



First I shall make a few comments on these papers, then 

 relate my own experiences since writing on this interesting 

 and important subject. 



Both Messrs. Johnston and Montgomery take exception to 

 my giving Mr. Dunn the honour of being the discoverer of 

 land glaciation in Tasmania. I was quite aware that evidences 

 of boulders, etc., transported by floating ice had been dis- 

 covered, and surmises made that land glaciation had existed, 

 but I still think that Mr. Dunn was (to use Mr. Montgomery's 

 own words) "the first to bring forward indisputable proofs" 

 of prehistoric glaciers, and this was my meaning when I wrote 

 last year. 



With regard to former discoveries enumerated in Mr. 

 Johnston's list of " Principal Sources of Reference," I might 

 rank as one of the early discoverers of evidences, although 

 not mentioned in this list. For in 1883 I visited Lake Dixon, 

 and also passed over Painters Plains, and was struck by the 

 number of scattered granite and greenstone boulders and large 

 boulders of the latter rock resting on the summit of Artist 

 Hill and other prominent heights ; also similar evidences all 

 through the Collingwood Valley. Here the boulders were 

 grooved, and the positions in which they were lying, " end 

 on," pointed that they had been transported by the agency of 

 glaciers from the Eldon Peak and Mount Cell. In my 

 Government report, 1883 (and I believe 1886), which was 

 printed and laid on the table of the House of Assembly, the 

 above statement is recorded. In conversations I had about this 

 time with my old friend Sprent and Mr. Johnston, I was 

 under the impression that both concluded that the large 

 boulders had been deposited by floating ice, and as late as 

 1889 Mr. Stephens, Director of Education, expressed this 

 theory when asked by the Bishop of Tasmania, at Mount 

 Arrowsmith, his opinion relative to the Collingwood boulders. 

 Mr. Johnston's first paper with reference to erratics on Maria 

 Island, brought by floating ice, was in 1884. 



