23 



limestones, and arenaceous mudstones of a white and yellow 

 colour. The members at the base, on the sea margin, consist 

 of grits interlaminated with bands of conglomerate, among 

 which scarce a trace of animal life can be observed. 



Watorworn and angular fragments of granite, altered 

 slates, porphryies quartzites, and greenstones (rocks unknown 

 in the vicinity) are most abundant. Some of the blocks are 

 huge like those found by me some years ago underneath the 

 Eurydesma and Pachydomus beds at Darlington, Maria 

 Island. 



At the time I described the Maria Island formation, it will 

 be remembered that I was inclined to ascribe the transport 

 of these great erratic blocks to ice action. 



Conglomerates of a similar character occur in, similar 

 formation at Bacchus Marsh (Victoria), Wollongong, and 

 Blue Mountains (New South Wales), Queensland, and in the 

 Talchir boulder-bed, India. It is now of additional interest 

 to find that E. D. Oldham, Deputy-Superintendent of the 

 Geological Survey of India, and Dr. Waagen concur in 

 ascribing the formation of beds, which are the analogues of 

 the Upper Palaeozoic marine beds of Tasmania, to the 

 influence of glacial action*. Dr. Waagen' s views respecting the 

 existence of a glacial period at the close of the Paleozoic age 

 in India and Australia are of such interest that I am con- 

 strained to reproduce some of his remarks. He states : — " The 

 enormous development of boulder beds that have been 

 formed under the influence of the action on this ancient 

 southern continent makes the supposition of very low tem- 

 perature during those times on that continent an absolute 

 necessity. These low temperatures were not of a local 

 occurrence only, but spread on the whole continent, thus 

 indicating a true glacial period a glacial period that was 

 in the beginning restricted to the Southern Hemisphere, and 

 only later on spread also to the Northern one."f In the 

 earlier times of the carboniferous period a rather high mean 

 temperature must have prevailed on the Southern Continent 

 as luxuriant forests of carboniferous plants were thriving 

 there, of which the remains have been preserved to us in Aus- 

 tralia as well as in South Africa. All of a sudden a consider- 

 able lowering of the temperature took place, ice began to be 

 formed in South Africa and India, and all the carboniferous 

 flora was destroyed in these countries, as well as in Australia, 

 by this low temperature. In the meantime in Australia a 



*Pateozoic glacial beds of the Salt Range (Waagen), Indian and 

 Australian coal bearing age (Oldham), Records Geological Survey, India, 

 vol. xix, pt. 1, 



tAccording to Ramsay there is evidence of a glacial period during the 

 aceum. 



