238 RECORDS OF TflE AUSTRALIAN MUSIUM. 



In soaie instances the use to wliieli any .^iven manufactiu-ed stone 

 implement was put is known from the fact tliat observers both in 

 Austraba, America, and elsewhere have seen the natives using the 

 instruments for various purposes of daily life. Other stone im- 

 plements whicli no doubt were largely used by the Aborigines 

 ai-e difficult to define, and we can only surmise as to what use 

 they were put. Recent weapons and implements, such as are 

 now made in Northern and Western Australia, afford a clue to 

 the uses of these carefully-prepared stone tools or weapons, and 

 also illustrate how the smallest fragments of flint or quartz were 

 fully utilized in the manufacture of fighting or " death " spear 

 barbs, saws, surgical lancets, gouges, etc. 



No I. — Plate xlil. Group 2. 



The most imi:)ortant instrument from an Ethnological point of 

 view is what we would prefer to call chipped-back surgical knives 

 (fig. 39). Various authorities have figured and described them, 

 but so far as we can gather they have never 

 been found in such quantities as obtained on 

 the coast of New South Wales. The most 

 remai-kable feature in connection with these 

 instrvmients is their more or less uniform 

 shape, irrespective of size. The thick worked 

 back is generally curved, and in section is 

 cuneiform or triangular ; the thin cutting 

 edge is usually sub-crescentic, sometimes 

 straight but rarely convex. Judging both 

 from the vuifinished and perfect instruments 

 they were manufactured from pebbles about 

 the size of a duck's egg ; the stone would be 

 divided transv'ersely in the middle and tlie 

 instruments struck off from each half. As 

 to the working or chipping, it is impossible 

 ^"ig- 39. ^Q gay whether this was done before or after 



the formation of the implement, but from the fact that 

 numerous similarlj'-shaped instruments have been found witli, 

 perhaps, a broken poiiit, which do not exhibit any chip- 

 ping, we are inclined to the opinion that the thick convex 

 part of the instrument was worked after the flake of 

 the recpiisite shape had been obtained. .So far as the cutting 

 edge or point is concei^ned, there is no evidence rewaled in the 

 instruments of chipping or grijiding, as the original sliarp edges 

 and points have not l)een interfered with in any way. As regards 



