42 AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINAL STONE WEAPONS AND IMPLEMENTS, 



Ranges natives, but is a more finished tool. Herein it resembles 

 the specimen from the Queensland Museum, but it stands to reason 

 that so much slighter an instrument as the latter could not produce 

 the effects ascribed to the heavier weapon from West Australia. 

 Iu the last-named province it is called Dow-ak or Dhabba.* 



Tn his account of the Aborigines of Cooper's Creek,f Mr. A. W. 

 Hovvitt refers to these gouges, and says that they are used " by 

 the workman sitting down upon the ground, holding the piece of 

 wood between his feet, and then adzing it, with the tool held 



towards him." 



xv. — Spike or awl. 



(PI. vi, fig. 3.) 



Although not a " stone" implement, this very interesting object, 

 from amongst Mr. Froggatt's Kimberley gatherings, is worthy of 

 notice. It appears to be of the nature of a spike or awl, and 

 is formed of an old-fashioned cast-iron four-sided nail sharpened 

 at one end and inserted in the proximal half of a human left 

 radius, and the point of insertion coated in the usual manner with 

 gum. I am ignorant whether human bones were much employed 

 by our Aborigines in their manufactures, but I believe not, 

 although bones of marsupials are to some extent, especially for 

 some of their smaller implements. 



Mr. Froggatt is unable to explain explicitly to what use this 

 implement was put, but it may have been used as a carver in the 

 ornamentation of wooden implements, or simply as an instrument 

 for piercing or boring. 



EXPLANATION OF PLATES IV. -VIII. 

 Plate iv. 



Fig. 1. — Spear-head, partially prepared, of black laminated jasperoid clay- 

 stone ; Kimberley. Coll. Froggatt. 



Fig. 2. — Spear-head, granular flesh-coloured quartzite ; Settlement Creek. 

 Coll. Queensland Museum. 



Fig. 3. — Spear-head, dark chocolate felsite, with flesh-coloured orthoclase ; 

 Nicholson River. Coll. Queensland Museum. 



* Curr figures a very different form of chisel, consisting of a facetted 

 stone mounted on a rough wooden handle by the aid of wax and string. 

 [Australian Race, 1886, i., 11th plate.) 



t " Notes on the Aborigines of Cooper's Creek." Smyth's Aborigines of 

 Victoria, 1878, n., p. 300. 



