360 AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINAL STONE WEAPONS AND IMPLEMENTS, 



It is composed of a dark green greywacke, perhaps an altered 

 mudstone, and has been formed from an unchipped elongated-oval 

 pebble by grinding one side flat, and partially so the other. By 

 this means the bevel of the cutting edge has been reduced to a 

 minimum, and to a low angle not often met with in our aboriginal 

 tomahawks, whilst the cutting edge is very obliquely rounded, 

 protruding at what was probably the lower anterior corner. The 

 surface, where not smoothed, is much pitted and worn. The 

 measurements are : — Length, 5lin. ; breadth, 3 Jin. ; thickness, 

 lfin.: weight, lib. 4oz. 



An excellent example of the flaked form in this type is afforded 

 by a tomahawk from New England, presented by Mr. H. W. 

 Blomfield (PL xxix., figs. 3 and 4). The original size of the stone 

 has been entirely reduced by chipping, leaving a rude and uneven 

 anterior end, partially bevelled oft" by friction. In its present 

 condition the cutting edge is rough and broken. The facets do 

 not show that marked diminution forwards, usually seen in 

 aboriginal tomahawks, but on one side are as large at the anterior 

 end as at the butt. The stone of which this implement is 

 composed is a silicified claystone allied to lydianstone. The 

 measurements are : — Length, 4-Jin. ; breadth, 2f in. ; thickness, 

 lfin.; weight, lO^oz. 



Appertaining to this group are two small tomahawks presented 

 to the Mining and Geological Museum by the Rev. J. Milne 

 Curran, from the Macquarie River, but beyond their rather 

 diminutive size they are not remarkable. Both are converted 

 pebbles, one (a) simply by friction, the other (b) by chipping 

 and friction. The former (a) is composed of a greenish-black 

 aphanitic diorite, and is slightly triangular in shape, increasing in 

 breadth from the butt forwards. The cutting edge and bevel are 

 both good, the former being straighter and less curved than usual. 



In the second of these diminutive tools (6) the stone is a 

 greenish-black diorite, speckled with small aggregates of triclinic 

 felspar. The cutting edge is less true, having what my colleague, 

 Mr. W. Anderson, has termed "a curvature in the line of its 



