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HAS MAN A GEOLOGICAL HISTORY IN AUSTRALIA 



By R. Etheridge, Jun., &c. 

 (Palaeontologist to the Australian Museum, and Geological 



Survey of N.S. Wales.) 



(Plate xi, figs. 6-7). 



The question has frequently presented itself — Are there any 

 geological traces of man on this Continent, such as exist in other 

 countries, and whereby the presence of a former race, or the 

 antiquity of the present fast disappearing one, can be traced? 

 The answer given by those most competent to judge is — No ! 



Let us examine the evidence on which this opinion is based 

 The late Mr. R. Brough Smyth, in his excellent work, " The 

 Aborigines of Victoria," says : "It is remarkable that no stone 

 hatchet, chip of basalt, or stone knife has been found anywhere 

 in Victoria except on the surface of the ground or a few inches 

 beneath the surface. It is true that fragments of tomahawks 

 and bone needles have been dug out of Mirrn-yong heaps on the 

 sea-coast, covered wholly or partially by blown-sand ; but though 

 some hundx'eds of square miles of alluvia have been turned over 

 in mining for gold, not a trace of any work of human hands has 

 been discovered. Some of the drifts are not more than three or 

 four feet in thickness (from the surface to the bed-rock), and the 

 fact that no Aboriginal implement, no bone belonging to man, 

 has been met with, is startling and perplexing."* 



Mr, Smyth adds : " Within quite recent periods . . . large 

 rivers, like the Snowy River in Gippsland, have in some places 

 changed their beds. . . . Such old beds and channels have 

 been completely dug over by gold miners, and the detritus and 



* Vol. I., 1878, p. 364. 



