Glaciation in the Australian Alps. 23 



boulders and debris at the lower levels where the valley 

 narrows and where the watercourse has cut through a hard 

 bar of quartz-porphyry and dense gneiss, tends to confirm 

 this impression, revealing other evidences in the shape of 

 striated boulders of yellow felsitic (micro-porphyritic) dykes 

 on the hill-sides. A few miles below this point the Victoria 

 Yalley suddenly narrows (the hills on either side rounded 

 and planed clown), and the watercourse falls into a deep 

 gorge towards the, Cobungra River. The elevation of 

 Parslow's Plains is 8000 feet above sea-leveL On con- 

 sidering the evidences of glaciation in this valley, I think 

 we are justified in inferring that the Victoria and Spring- 

 Creeks, together with the sub-alpine basin at Parslow's 

 Plains, was occupied by large masses of ice during later 

 Pleistocene times. The great amount of erodation which 

 has taken place elsewhere, notably in the Dargo River 

 valle^y, on the southern side of the main Dividing Range, is 

 in striking contrast with the small amount visible in the 

 upper sources of the Victoria Creek, where denudation has 

 been less active. These valleys would to a great extent be 

 sheltered from the influence of northern or north-western 

 hot winds by the high Bogong Ranges, while the Dargo is 

 open to the more constant precipitation of south-west and 

 south moisture-laden winds, so that long after the maximum 

 of glaciation had occurred the valleys of the Victoria Creeks 

 would retain their icy mantles. 



Livingstone Ceeek Valley. 



Embracing an area of 138 square miles, with a total length 

 of 31 miles, this valley slopes uniformly from the open 

 moorland flats near its sources, in the main Divide, to the 

 Hinnomunjie Flats at the junction with the Mitta Mitta 

 River. The elevation of the Dividing Range at the sources 

 of the Livingstone Creek is 4500 feet, and of the Hinno- 

 munjie Flats about 1800 feet. The typical silurian slates 

 and sandstones of the golclfields occupy the southern 

 crest of the Divide and the fall towards the Wentworth 

 River. About six miles further south, in the valley of, the 

 latter, are extensive outcrops of a grey quartz conglomerate 

 and coarse gritty sandstone, to be hereafter referred to. 



On the northern crest of the Divide is a mass of grey 

 ternary granite, which gives place to the metamorphic 



