The Bacchus Marsh Boulder Beds

Abstract

YOUR issue of August 10 contains an interesting communication by Messrs. Officer and Balfour on the glacial boulder beds of Bacchus Marsh in Victoria, in which they are referred to as triassic. May I be permitted to point out that this is erroneous? It is true that the late Dr. O. Feistmantel in his earlier descriptions of, and references to, the flora of these beds, regarded them as triassic, but this was the natural consequence of their correlation with the Talchir group of India, which he then ascribed to the trias. In 1886 it was shown by Dr. Wagner and myself sumultaneously that the true correlation of the Talchir group was with the marine beds below the Newcastle coal measures of New South Wales; the Bacchus Marsh boulde: beds are consequently upper carboniferous, and form part of the traces of the upper carboniferous glacial period which have been recognised in Australia, Africa and Asia. The matter will be found fully dealt with in pages 120–123 and 191–214 of the second edition of the “Manual of the Geology of India,” just published by the Indian Geological Survey.