436 CERTAIN OBJECTS OF UNKNOWN SIGNIFICANCE. 



thereof 1 And why employ a pounder weighing 4 or 5 lbs. for 

 such work 1 



The two other suggestions I have already referred to, viz., 

 " Tombstones " and " Records of the Dead," have so many serious 

 objections against and (as far as I have been able to learn) nothing 

 in favour of them, that it would be useless for me to do more 

 than mention them here. If it be thought that the same remark 

 •would apply equally to certain of the other theories examined, 

 then my excuse is that the character of the stones is brought out 

 more distinctly by such an examination than by a simple descrip- 

 tive catalogue. 



Finally, authorities are divided as to whether they are 

 "'pounders" or "ceremonial stones"; in the state of our present 

 knowledge we may style them either the one or the other. This 

 is very unsatisfactory, and it must be the hope of every Australian 

 ethnologist that the question will hereafter be definitely settled. 



Editorial Postscript — 8tone No. 7 (antea, p. 428) was exhibited 

 at the Society's Meeting of September 26th, 1888. By an oversight 

 the notice of the exhibit does not appear in the Proceedings for 

 1888, but it is thus referred to in the Abstract of the date 

 mentioned : — - 



" Mr. Maiden exhibited, on behalf of the Rev. J. Milne Curran, 

 an aboriginal relic or implement of undetermined character, 

 found a few months ago in sinking a tank at Byrock, N.S.W., at 

 a depth of 7 feet. It is of argillaceous sandstone, carrot-shaped, 

 about 11| X 2^1 inches, the broad extremity concave, the surface 

 marked transversely at intervals with lines of which there are 

 five pairs on one side and three pairs on the other. Blackfellows 

 to whom it had been shown could give no information about it ; 

 nor had anyone who had yet seen it been able to recognise its 

 import."* 



* " On comparing the specimen witli an implement exhiliited on liehalf of 

 Mr. C. S. Wilkinson, at the Society's Meeting of 25th June, 1884 (vide 

 Proceedings, Vol. ix., p. 507), it is evident that the two are of a similar 

 character, difTering but little except in regard to size and in the details of 

 the pairs of transverse markings." 



