BY R. ETHERIDGE, JUN. 371 



The late Rev. P. MacPherson has described large axes from 

 N. S. Wales, on which " numerous dints, abrasions, and scratches 

 are strongly suggestive of the device of driving stone pegs between 

 the handle and the hatchet for the purpose of tightening the 

 handle."* Neither of the foregoing axes shows such traces, nor 

 has any example with similar markings yet come under my notice. 

 It is a very peculiar and at the same time suggestive fact that by 

 the means of a bent wooden handle, the whole of the Australian 

 tribes, except some of the West Australians, who have used 

 tomahawks or axes, have so fastened them. They do not 

 appear ever to have hit upon the plan of boring the stone 

 heads for the insertion of a single handle, similar to some of 

 the perforated Neolithic hammers of the Old World, f Indeed, a 

 very interesting circumstance is related by Col. A. Lane-Fox, | 

 bearing on this peculiarity. He states § that a European axe-head 

 was found at an old native camping place, the hole of which the 

 natives, unable to comprehend its object, had carefully filled with 

 their cementing medium, and hafted by means of a withy, bent 

 round the outside of the axe-head, in accordance with their 

 traditional custom. || 



So far as I can gather, the distribution of these large axes 

 appears to be limited. We have evidence that they were used in 

 Queensland from north to south; the Rev. P. MacPherson knew of 

 their existence in N. S. Wales. On the other hand, Smyth states :U 

 " I have never seen any of these large implements in the hands of 

 the natives of Victoria." At the same time, they were evidently 

 in use in the latter colony in former days, for the same author 

 remarks :** " There are found also in the mirrn-yong heaps and in 

 the soil very large tomahawks of different forms, which, it is said 



* Journ. R. Soc. N. S. Wales for 1885 [1886], xix., p. 114. 



t See Evans' Ancient Stone Implements. &c, Gt. Brit., 1872, p. 196 et seq. 



X Now General Pitt-Rivers. 



§ Report Brit. Assoc. Adv. Sci. for 1862 [1863], p. 160. 



|| Aborigines of Victoria, 1878, 1., p. 374. 



IT Ibid., p. lv. 



** Ibid., p. liv. 



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