OF NEW SOUTH WALES. 23 



The generality of these hatchets had handles fixed to them by 

 doubling a piece of tough wood round them, the two were then 

 bound together tightly with kangaroo sinews, and the whole 

 plastered with the gum of the grass tree. Usually the handle is 

 fixed so that only one end of the stone could be used ; but specimens 

 which I have only recently received from the Macdonald River, a 

 tributary of the Hawkesbury, lead me to assume that in some 

 instances the handles was fixed in the centre of the stone so that 

 both edges were used. That stone hatchets have been made and 

 used in this manner by neighbouring tribes is shown by the 

 beautiful specimen, the property of Mr. Markey, kindly lent 

 me by him to show this evening. The edges of those peculiar to 

 Australia are almost invariably worn quite straight, transversely, 

 across the stone, and curved from side to side, and with this single 

 exception shown with only one edge sharpened. But this rule 

 cannot be considered absolute, for I show you a stone dug from the 

 Wollombi Caves by Mr. Brooks, Police Magistrate, of a shape 

 totally different to any hitherto recorded as having been found in 

 Australia. It approaches, in fact, more to the hatchets of the Fiji 

 Group than to any other that I know of. It has a broad upper 

 surface flat and well polished ; below it is also flat and well 

 polished, the two surfaces tapering towards each other and making 

 a good cutting edge but bevelled off from above downwards with 

 great precision and the angles of the different edges carefully worn 

 off. It also presents at the opposite end a portion evidently worn 

 down for the purpose of attaching a handle to it; and from analogy 

 I believed it to have been fastened into a crooked handle, similar 

 to those of the Fiji Group ; and I canuot believe that it has not 

 been introduced. The hatchets from the Solomon Isles are always 

 conical in form and the cutting surface is not straight, but formed 

 with a decided curve and are highly polished. 



The Fiji weapons are generally long and tapering to each end, 

 one end coming to a sharp cuttting surface, and the other morticed 

 in an elbow shaped handle. 



In New Caledonia some of the finest specimens of these hatchets 

 are to be found. In form they are generally circular, made of 

 green stone, flat with a cutting surface all round, and the handle 



