M AiTLAN*i\ — H'c.s'/f .1 iL'itraiitw GroJooy. 
It woiilil take tar too larpv a ilvaft upon your tiino to attempt 
even a ein>ory examination ot‘ the varituis i-auses \vhii.'h have boon 
soiiglit to aeeount t'<‘r tliis I’eriuo-ra riumil’erous iiineiatiou, as thes-e 
are sonuuvliat outside the seope of this address. Tlio exa<d 
exjdauatiou of tliis ii-hu-iation is not. ho^ve^•er, quite elear and it 
^vould seem to remain as yet an unsolved problem, though it may 
be that as the question of past geologieal ghu-iations becomes more 
thoroughlv investigated sueh may be found to result from .a 
eoinbination of factors both local and general. 
It ha-' been ]HiintiHl out that ‘‘the discoveries of Australian 
glacial geologv . . are not oedv th.e most important that h:^^^.‘ 
hitherto l>een rocoided (all the States of the t\uumomYealth liav.-' 
been moi'e (»r 1- ss under the indueiice of glacial conditions'', 
but may fairly rank amongst the most important contri 
butions ever made to our kmvwledge of the glacial geology of the 
Avorld. 
Prior tn the time when the Ihuano-Carboniferous ice-tloes 
drifted about biaded with Imuhlers and silt, and which on melting 
scattered tlieir <lebris along tlie shore line and over the seadiottom. 
AVesterii Australia formed an integral imrtion of that southern 
continent linking together South America. Africa. Madagascar, lud’a 
and Antarctica. This continent, which lias been named Gondwana- 
land. formed a barrier between a soutliern ocean and a great 
central Purasiaii sea, extending across northern India nheie tlu 
Himalayas now stainl. into Purope. and of which the ^^edlterranean 
is but a very small relic. There are also sound scientific reasons 
for thinking that Australia at this geological period had direct 
connection with Antarctica and tlieiu-e to Gouth America, and that 
Western Australia formed a somewhat remote corner of Gond- 
wanaland. The great revolution in physical geograidiy which re- 
sulted ill the dismemberment of the old continent of Goiidwaiialand. 
inoduced. iiticr alia, the present coiitineut of Australia by. as 
liased ui>on what is nowadays known as the Wegner Drift Hypo- 
thesis, a disruption and drifting of parts under tidal nillueiices, 
which gradually became widely separated by vast stretches cf 
oceaii having a dei-tli in ]daces of several miles. On the assumption 
that this coiitiiiental wandering is a correct iiiterpretatum of the 
f:;cts. it follows that ancient Gomlwanaland must have had a 
very much smaller area tliaii has been usually pictured. 
If. as has been inferred, South Africa is the Mother (\mtinent 
fiom wliich “Soutl! America on tlie one hand, and IMadagascar. 
India ami Australia, with their surrounding areas, on the other, 
have split nff ami drifted away." it is to the westward, across 
the wide exj.aiise of the Indian Ocean where much of the evidence 
calculated to explain many of the problems of Western Australia’s 
