5 o4 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



The shell-fish were roasted ; and the empty shells, thrown 

 away near the hearths, grew into enormous mounds or kitchen 

 middens, which still afford interesting material to the anthro- 

 pologist. Most of the shells found in these belong to genera 

 which are universally eaten by mankind, such as oysters, 

 mussels, cockles, limpets, periwinkles (Turbo and Purpura), and 

 ear-shells (Haliotis). The periwinkles were broken by a stone 

 hammer on a stone anvil, and these implements, as well as 

 stone knives, are also found in the kitchen middens. 



Several kinds of plants furnished them with vegetable food — 

 the young shoots of ferns, roots of bulrush, the ripe fruit of the 

 kangaroo apple (Solatium laciniatum), a fungus with a truffle-like 

 growth, and sea-wrack. These were cooked by broiling. 



Water was their usual but not their only drink, for they 

 well understood the virtues of fermented liquor. A species of 

 gum-tree (Eucalyptus resiniferd) yields when tapped a slightly 

 sweet juice, resembling treacle ; this they allowed to collect in 

 a hole at the bottom of the trunk, where it underwent a natural 

 fermentation, and furnished a kind of coarse wine. 



Fire was obtained either by the simple plan of rubbing the 

 pointed end of a stick to and fro in a groove cut in another 

 piece of wood or by the drill method, i.e. by rotating one stick 

 in a hole sunk in another. Each family kindled its own fire 

 at its own hearth, the hearths being separated by intervals of 

 fourteen to twenty yards. 



The following statement of Backhouse is of interest in con- 

 nection with the discovery of marked stones in some European 

 caves. He writes : " One day we noticed a woman arranging 

 stones that were flat, oval, and about two inches wide, and 

 marked in various directions with black and red lines. These 

 we learned represented absent friends, and one larger than the 

 rest a corpulent woman on Flinders Island, known as Mother 

 Brown." 



It is said that rude attempts were sometimes made to repre- 

 sent natural objects by drawings. Very poor sketches of cattle, 

 kangaroo, and dogs done in charcoal are mentioned ; but cattle 

 and dogs suggest the possibility of European influence. The 

 fact that large pieces of bark have been found with crudely 

 marked characters like the gashes the natives cut in their arms 

 is of more importance. 



The facts we have thus briefly summarised include almost 



