620 
evidence wliich I pointed out vehen on the spot. A movement from south to north 
accords very well with Professor Tate’s own observation that “ the common rocks 
of the morainic debris are granites, gneiss, hornblende-schists, and others, which do 
not occur in situ nearer than the gorge at Normanville, about forty-six miles to the 
south.” 
Naturally, it seemed reasonable to suppose that a local glacier must have 
produced the roeJies moutonnSes and strim, but, on the other hand, there are no mountains 
in the neighbourhood of sufficient altitude to give rise to a glacier of such importance as 
to fill the whole broad valley occupied by 8t. Vincent Q-ulf. It is equally true that 
there is no sufficiently high land to the south. It is possible, but not probable, that 
such high land may have formerly existed either to the north or south, and have 
subsequently been depressed. Violent as the supposition may be, it is more likely that 
an Antartic ice-caj) extended as far as the southern coast of Australia. South of 
St. Vincent Gulf, and west of Tasmania, an oceanic depth of over twelve thousand feet 
is speedily reached, and in sea-water of this depth ice of nearly seventeen thousand 
feet in thickness would float without grounding. These figures may be supposed to 
reduce the argument in favour of an Antartic ice-cap ad absurdtim. Be this as it may, I 
regard it as an ascertained fact that a sheet of ice moved from south to north up 
St. Vincent Gulf. 
As bearing on the question of the possible extension of an Antartic polar ice-cap, 
some pregnant observations were made during the Scientific Yoyage of the “ Challenger.’’ 
Not having it in my power to refer, as I write, to the “Challenger” reports,! am compelled 
to quote, at second-hand, from some comments thereon by Mr. G. S. Griffiths, P.G.S.,* 
relating to evidences of a Glacial Period from Kerguelen Land, 
Kerguelen Land is situated in the Indian Ocean, approximately in Long. 70° 
E., and Lat. 50° S. — i.e., about 15° south of the latitude of Adelaide. It may 
be remarked, further, that it is just south of Kerguelen Laud that the curve 
denoting the northern limit of (Antartic) drift ice recedes nearer the pole than in 
any other portion of the Southern Hemisphere. The curve is denoted on physical 
maps as keeping about 10° or 12° south of the Australian Continent, and about the 
same distance south of Kerguelen Land, although the latter is quite 15° further south 
than the former. For a continental ice-cap to reach Australia from the southern polar 
regions .would be no more remarkable, therefore, than for one to reach Kerguelen 
Land. In other words, the change of temperature required to bring about the 
one would suffice to bring about the other. That the evidence of a Glacial Epoch 
in both places is much of the same character will be evident from the following 
extract : — 
“ The interesting feature in relation to these glaciers is that, whereas they are 
to-day confined to the higher valleys of the higher ranges, there are abundant and 
indisputable evidences that the whole island down to and even belOw the sea-level was 
buried under ice at a com 2 )aratively recent period. The furrows of glaciers are seen 
wherever the island has been explored. The lower hill- tops, still bare and barren, have 
been cut down by travelling ice, which has planed them smooth, exposing clean-cut 
horizontal sections of the geodes of the amygdaloidal rocks. Each shelf of the basalt 
stairs has its strife, and the lower valleys are scratched and scraped and smoothed by 
glaciers which have since disappeared. Every harbour is an ice-cut fiord.f ” It may be 
remarked that the whole island being buried under ice is apparently inconsistent with 
the idea of local glaciers. 
* Trans. R. Soc. Victoria, xxiii. 
t “ Challenger " Reports, p. 356, 
