374 AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINAL STONE WEAPONS AND IMPLEMENTS, 



old-fashioned wood-cutter's axe. It is from Fraser's Island, and 

 is again from the Queensland Museum. The cutting edge is the 

 longest side, the butt being obtusely pointed, the rapidly increasing 

 width, with the slightly concave edges, giving to it the old axe- 

 like form referred to, and which effect may possibly have been 

 heightened by friction. The sides are flat, and the edge is bevelled 

 on one only. It is composed of a hard drab sand-rock, and the 

 cutting edge, as might have been expected, is somewhat blunt. 

 The concavity of the upper and lower edges gives to the cutting 

 edge at its ends an upwardly swelling appearance. There are no 

 signs of a hafting groove, flaking of the surface, or abrasions 

 caused by pegs driven to tighten a handle. The measurements of 

 this implement are : — Length, 8Jin. ; breadth, 6|in. ; thickness, 

 If in. ; weight, 2ftt>. 



Triangular tools of this description seem to be rare, but Smyth 

 records one from Coranderrk, Victoria, but it is not clear whether 

 it was an axe or a tomahawk. 



The question naturally arises, are the implements from Toowong, 

 the Herbert Gorge, and Fraser's Island, axes or wedges? I see 

 nothing to prevent them from being wedges, but, on the contrary, 

 a good deal in favour of such a use. In describing the Paterson 

 axe, Mr. MacPherson said* — "its size is suggestive of its having 

 been used as a wedge for splitting," and, " there is an appearance 

 about the edge of this instrument which gives the idea of its 

 having been forced through hard wood." The shape of the 

 implements from Toowong and Fraser's Island renders it difficult 

 to imagine a handle attached, whilst their size is against a simple 

 grasping by the hand. On the other hand, the slight withy placed 

 round the Herbert Gorge instrument, provided it is genuine, is 

 enough to denote its use, that of being held in one hand and struck 

 by some other body, probably a piece of wood. The presence of 

 the withy indicates that it was not a manual weapon in the strict 

 sense of the word, whilst the lightness of the withy equally forbids 

 the use of the instrument as an axe. 



* Journ. R. Soc. N. S. Wales for 1885 [1886], xix M p. 115. 



