538 NOTES AND EXHIBITS. 



" The flints consisted of large pebbles and chips. One or two 

 of the latter have artificial edges. These flints appear to me to 

 have been used as knives by the aborigines, and in most cases the 

 natural edge satisfied the workman. To a large extent the 

 silicified wood so abundant in the coal measures of the district 

 have supplied the material. 



" Position^ dx. — These shell-heaps lie between Bellambi Point 

 and the Bellambi Lagoon, on the south side of the Bellambi jetties. 

 They are about twenty-five feet above high water, and rest on an 

 ancient dune which has and is still suflfering rapid deportation by 

 the wind. 



" Some Remarks on the Bearing of the Foregoing on ce^'tain 

 Theories relating to Raised Beaches on our eastern coast. — Shell- 

 mounds on the Illawarra coast have been referred to by several 

 geologists* as remnants of raised beaches, and have been cited by 

 them as evidence of a recent elevation of the eastern coast. 

 Professor Dana makes particular reference to a low ridge stretch- 

 ing between Bulli and Wollongong, standing some twenty-five 

 feet above sea-level. Our kitchen-midden forms a part of this 

 ridge, and in all probability one of the parts inspected cursorily 

 by Dana and accepted by him to have been a true littoral deposit. 



" It is therefore plain that in proving the Bellambi shell-heaps 

 to be kitchen-midden remnants, the value of any of those shell- 

 heaps along this part of our coast as evidence in support of the 

 elevation of our coast in recent times is greatly discounted. 



"At the present time in the neighbourhood of the Bellambi 

 midden the sea is actually advancing on the present shore, 

 as is shown by the following : — (1) The midden now lies only 

 a few yards from the present shore, in such an exjiosed position 

 as to render it wholly unfitted for the site of a kitchen-midden. 

 (2) On and near the site of the midden I saw decayed trunks 

 and stumps of trees (the latter m situ) of considerable size, 

 that could not have grown in this exposed position so near the 

 sea. Both the users of the midden and the trees must have 



* Vide " Raised Beaches of the Hunter River Delta," David aud Etheridge, 

 Records of the Geological Survey of N. S. W., Vol. ii. part 2, 1890. 



