Australia is a continent with no great' mountain ranges or permanent snow and hence no glaciers. Though glacial scenery is to be found in Tasmania, the closest existing glaciers are those in the south island of New Zealand. The absence of ice fields and their resultant glaciers is no indication however of past climatic conditions in this country. The geological record shows that in the distant past there were several great ice ages, signs of which are plainly to be seen in both great rock formations, and in the many features associated with glacial valleys. South Australian geology is rich in glacial features, testifying to past periods when much of the then land surface was engulfed in a great ice sheet; or in which great valley type glaciers descended to the sea from past mountain ranges. One of these ice ages occurred in Permian times, at the end of the Palaeozoic - about 260 million' years ago