292 AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINAL STONE WEAPONS AND IMPLEMENTS 



for affording a grasp of the weapon such as are seen on those axes 

 known to have been used in this way. Or, it may have been 

 used for skinning, and other similar purposes, as its obvious 

 weakness would ill tit it for the heavy work to which the blacks 

 put their tomahawks. The implement to which I above compared 

 the present specimen, is but little thicker in its substance than 

 the latter. It is much shorter, being five inches in length, but 

 slightly wider, having a width of three inches. Instead of being 

 ground to a cutting edge at one end, it is so along one of the 

 longer sides. It clearly afforded a better grip to the hand than the 

 Port Stephens weapon, and in all pi'obability was used for skinning. 

 It is composed of micaceous sandy shale. Of whatever use these 

 implements may have been, there can be no doubt as to their 

 wide deviation from the generality of stone axes met with in 

 eastern New South Wales. 



iv. — A well-finished Tomahawk of ordinary form from Brisbane 



Water. 



In contradistinction to the foregoing "tomahawks" is the ex- 

 ceedingly well finished implement from near Gosford, Brisbane 

 Water, and forwarded to me by the same careful collector, Mr. 

 Crummer. It is of the ordinary wedge-shaped type, and is made 

 from a pebble of a dense greenish-black, fragmental, altered, 

 and basic rock. As is usually the case with our aborigines, the 

 shape of the pebble has been taken advantage of, and it has been 

 ground down to a cutting edge on both sides for quite a third of 

 its length. The cutting edge describes a segment of a circle, the 

 the diameter of which would be at least seven inches, but it is 

 rather unequally I'ounded at one extremity. On the other hand 

 it has been most carefully kept in the middle transverse line of the 

 pebble. The bevelled faces show distinct evidence of several suc- 

 cessively ground surfaces, the final one on both faces resulting 

 in a perfectly clean sweep from top to bottom. The dimensions 

 are as follows — length, four and three-quarter inches ; greatest 

 breadth, two and six-eighths ; thickness, one and six-eighths inches^ 



