GLACIAL CO>DITMXS IX TIIK PA L-UOZOIC ERA, ETC. 259 



as evidence of synchronism, and in one case, in the supposed proof 

 that the Bacchus-Marsh and Hawkesbury beds were contempora- 

 neous, reasoning from glacial evidence certainly led to a false con- 

 clusion. I must say I always felt doubtful about this particular case, 

 and it was partly this which in the last note I wrote on the subject 

 led me to remark, with reference to the supposed synchronism of 

 all the various beds, that it would be very unwise to insist too much 

 on the coincidence. The great addition made to the area over which 

 boulder-beds have now been traced, tends very strongly indeed to 

 support the view that all are really contemporaneous or nearly so, 

 and that the Ecca beds of South Africa and the Talchir beds of India 

 are of the same geological age as the Carboniferous strata of Eastern 

 Australia, and approximately equivalent to the Coal-measures of 

 Western Europe*. At the same time there is no improbability in a 

 recurrence of glacial conditions during at least a considerable portion 

 of the Carboniferous period ; and to such recurrences may perhaps be 

 attributed the glacial evidence observed in the Hawkesbury beds of 

 Australia and the Permians of England and Germany. This, how- 

 ever, only overcomes part of the difficulty that arises. One of the 

 great puzzles is to explain why, at a time when the cold, in winter 

 at all events, in 16° north latitude, was sufficiently intense to admit 

 of boulders being carried by ice into large river-valleys or lakes, a 

 much richer vegetation appears to have flourished in far higher lati- 

 tudes in Europe t. 



Mr. E. Oldham, in a recent paper, written, however, before he 

 visited Australia, and before much of the evidence now procured 

 was available, suggested a great alteration in the position of the 

 earth's axis ; but I am doubtful whether the position suggested by 

 him for the pole in Central Africa would dispose of the difficulty, 

 and I am inclined to think it better to await more information 

 before attempting to map out the area aff'ected. The idea of glacial 

 action in past times, apart from the subrecent glacial epoch, is novel 

 to geologists in general, and it is very possible that information will 

 accumulate when attention has been more generally drawn to the 

 facts recently ascertained. 



There is, however, one point to which attention should for a 

 moment be called, and that is the connexion between the occurrence 

 of a great glacial epoch at the close of the Palaeozoic era and the 



* I do not employ the terms Upper and Middle Carboniferous, because it is 

 by no means certain what such terms imply. In my own opinion, it is a 

 mistake to divorce the Permian from the Carboniferous, of which, when all are 

 represented by marine beds, the Permian forms the upper series ; but in this 

 matter the interests of science are in competition with local convenience 



t The coal-plants found so abundantly in Bear Island, Spitzbergeu, and 

 Grinnell Land are chiefly from the Ursa beds, which are much older than the 

 European Coal-measures, though one stage in Spitzbergen is said to be equi- 

 valent to the uppermost Coal-measures. No Arctic coal-plants are known, so 

 far as I am aware, of the same date as that now assigned to the boulder-beds of 

 India, Australia, and South Africa. Also it should not be forgotten that 

 identity of fossil plant-remains does not prove beds to be of contemporaneous 

 origin. At the same time the absence of glacial evidence in past times amongst 

 Ai-ctic lands must not be forgotten. 



Q.J.G.S. No. 166. T 



