260 HAS MAN A GEOLOGICAL HISTORY IN AUSTRALIA? 



debris have been washed ; but, as fai- as I know, there has not 

 been recorded any discovery of native implements. In much 

 older gravels, clays, and sands underlying Recent Volcanic I'ocks, 

 where occur fossil fruits belonging to genera now found only in 

 the northern parts of Australia, the miner has carried his explora- 

 tions ; but nothing belonging to man has been seen. More recent 

 deposits, in which are imbedded trunks of trees, and where the 

 cones of the JBanksia, leaves of several species of eucalypts, and 

 remains of marsupials are of common occurrence, are likewise 

 barren. The tracts where, over a large area, volcanic ash,' some 

 thirty or forty feet in thickness, overlies a grass-clad surface once 

 trod by the native dog, and on which his bones are found, retain 

 no trace of the native. Even the caves which have been explored 

 exhibit no other than very recent evidences of the existence of 

 man. * 



Another writer, the Eev. P. MacPherson, M.A., of equal 

 authority, arrives at much the same conclusion, for after fully 

 discussing the question for and against, he concludes by saying : 

 " Up to date, direct evidence for a geologic antiquity on behalf 

 of the Australian aborigines seems to be very scanty."! The 

 same author, in an excellent description of the "Oven-mounds of 

 the Aborigines of Victoria,"! shows that even these large 

 accumulations, with their varied contents, do not assist in a solu- 

 tion of the question, for their rate of increase and size is no more 

 than can be accounted for in the historical period, as we used the 

 term here. 



The only hitherto recorded facts which can be brought in 

 opposition to these views known to the writer are the following, 

 and even they, from the uncertainty attached to the rate of 

 increase of Post-Tertiary deposits, cannot be regarded as carrying 

 much weight. Perhaps the best authenticated is the Bodalla 



* Loc. cit. 



t "Stone Implements of the Aborigines of Australia, &c." Journ. R. 

 Soc. N. S. Wales for 1885 [1886], xix. p. 119. 

 t Journ. R Soc. A\ S. Wales for 1884 [1885], xviii., p. 58. 



