Evidences of Glaciation in the Australian Alps. 21 



tertiary basalts, and then into some hard crystalline 

 (gneissose) rocks. Unlike many other streams which have 

 cut their way through these old lava flows — -notably, the 

 Dargo River — there are no bold escarpments of pentagonal 

 basaltic columns, but the sides of the valley have been 

 planed down in uniform slopes, presenting rather an undu- 

 lating appearance for the first four or five miles. At lower 

 levels, the hard gneissose rocks are seen to be planed and 

 rounded in the direction of the main valley, giving to them 

 a moutonne appearance. On examining the surface of some 

 blocks standing out from the black peaty soil in the narrow 

 sub-alpine flats, their surfaces are seen to be striated by 

 parallel groovings in the direction of the valley, viz., east 

 and west ; and that these markings cut the strike of the 

 bedding of the rocks at an angle of 25° to 30°, the latter 

 being 60' to 65' N.W. At a point lower down (not more 

 than half-a-mile distant), the watercourse has eroded a 

 channel through a somewhat narrow gorge, the steep rocky 

 spurs on each side being composed of gneiss and other coarse 

 micaceous schists. At various points of low spurs, masses 

 of red earth, in which are angular fragments of metamorphic 

 and basaltic rocks, are found, and generally at heights vary- 

 ing between twenty and thirty feet above the level of the 

 present watercourse. About six miles lower down the valley 

 widens, and a good depth of alluvium forms some open 

 flats known as Parslow's Plains. On examining some 

 superficial detritus on the hill-sides overlooking the 

 flat to the north, remnants of yellow indurated clays, 

 similar to those at Cobungra, are found. These laminated 

 clays have evidently been brought from old miocene river 

 beds similar to those at the sources of the Cobungra, some 

 twelve miles distant, and at the higher levels. The fact 

 of finding these fragments here seems to me sufficient proof 

 that they were not washed down by the translocating agency 

 of running water, otherwise it seems hardly possible that 

 these clays would not have been long since worn by attrition 

 to fine powder or sediment. In the creek bed which winds 

 sinuously through the Parslow's Plain are masses of large 

 waterworn boulders of basalt, some of which are flattened 

 on one side, and striated altogether distinct from ordinary 

 weathering or the action of running water. At lower levels, 

 the Victoria receives an affluent from the south called Spring- 

 Creek, which rises at the Dividing Range near Mount Phipps, 

 where outcrops of silurian slates are found, and where the 



