264 JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 
must almost certainly have been contemporaneous with the 
glacial epoch of the northern hemisphere.” 
Let us now turn to Australia. In Tasmania there appear to 
be several glacier lakes, but I have seen no description of any 
moraines. Lake Omeo, in the Australian Alps, may also have 
had the same origin, but it must not be forgotten that in a dry 
climate like Australia, the wind may excavate rock basins. A 
glacial epoch, however, is not required to account for these. 
Whether Australia has undergone the rigors of a glacial epoch 
is a moot question with Australian geologists. Mr. Tenison- 
Woods* and Mr. Howittt can find no traces of it; while Pro- 
fessor R. Tate is of the contrary opinion and instances striated 
rock surfaces and small granite erratics on the beach at Black 
Point, Holdfast Bay, near Adelaide,{ but he considers all these 
to be of pliocene age. This is in Lat. 35° S., only one degree 
south of Sydney. Professor Tate also describes parallel grooves 
and scratches running east and west in the rocks in the bed of 
the Inman, Cape Jarvis; and on these grooves Mr. Selwyn had 
previously remarked that they strongly reminded him of similar 
grooves he had so frequently seen in the mountains of North 
Wales. Mr. G. S. Griffiths has also lately read a paper to the 
Royal Society of Victoria, “On the evidences of a glacier epoch 
in Victoria during post-miocene times.” Mr. Griffiths allows 
that the evidence is not altogether satisfactory, consisting as it 
chiefly does of the wide distribution of clays with gravels and 
boulders, for the most part well water-worn ; but he considers 
that a Pliocene glaciation offers the best explanation of the facts. 
If the glacial theory is rejected, he says, “we shall have to 
believe that since the pliocene era commenced Victoria has been 
elevated and depressed to a considerable extent at least five or 
six times” (p. 26). It seems to me, however, that one subsi- 
dence, varied withsseveral slight upward oscillations, is all that is 
required ; and as in Victoria marine pliocene rocks occur up to 
1720 feet above the sea,§_ I think that this last hypothesis pre- 
sents far fewer difficulties that the former, especially when we 
remember that there are no true glacial phenomena in New 
Zealand. 
It is indeed hard to believe that these Australian glacial 
phenomena are due toa general cold period in the southern 
hemisphere ; for if such had been the case, the South Island of 
New Zealand must have been covered with snow and ice, and 
almost all life would have been destroyed, a supposition which 
Mr. W. T. L. Travers has shewn it is impossible for us to allow.|| 
We come nowto S. Africa. Mr. Wallace says that ‘“‘accord- 
ing to several writers” there are traces ofancient glaciers in the 
Transvaal. But so far as I know only two writers—Mr. Stow 
* Proc. Lin, Soc, of N. S. Wales, VII., p. 382. 
+ Quar, Jour. Ged, Soc, XXXV., p. 35. 
¢ Trans, Roy. Soc, 8. Australia, 1878-9 Anniversary Address. 
§ Lock’s Gold, p. 931, quoted by Mr, Griffiths, p. 22, 
|| Trans, N.Z. Inst., VIIL., p. 409. 
