'28 Evidences of a Glacial Epoch in Victoria. 



I have now completed the task I had set myself, and 

 hasten to conclude. 



We have seen that, owing to various obscure causes, 

 Victoria must have its climate lowered at various times. On 

 the last occasion a miocene plateau, of great height and unde- 

 termined area, was ground off the face of the ' country by 

 glacial ice. Its non-auriferous sandstone yielded the value- 

 less early washes of our goldfields (Selwyn's Geo. Obs. Vict, p. 

 22). The poor upper silurian shales and slates were next 

 reached, and scoured away over wide tracks, and these yielded 

 the inferior washes of middle date ; and last, the rich lower 

 silurian rock was uncovered, and literally quarried away by 

 wedge of frost and chisel of ice, and the debris was reduced 

 to boulders, gravel, sand, and clay in the glacier battery. 

 These products, ground-sluiced by the ice-waters, remain 

 behind as the golden washes of the latest period. 



We have seen that these operations were not continuous, 

 but were interrupted by periods of warmer temperature. 

 With these changes the ocean oscillated, its waters now 

 rising until Australia was an archipelago, and anon 

 sinking until Bass's Straits were dry land, and a promon- 

 tory stretched its long horn far southward of Tasmania. 

 And while these operations were proceeding the flora and 

 fauna were being shifted from point to point, exterminated, 

 renewed, and varied in a remarkable manner. 



Such is a bald sketch of the picture which presents itself 

 to the mind as one reviews the evidence by the light of the 

 geological revelations of the Northern Hemisphere. It 

 appears to me that a glacial climate in Victoria during post- 

 miocene times will account for many local phenomena which 

 are not explained by the fluvial theory, and will render 

 intelligible many of the peculiarities of our deep leads and 

 of our alluviums. 



Aet. II. — The Recent Red Sunsets. 

 By Professor Andrew. 



[Read 13th March, 1884.] 



