1897.] 



MATHEWS — ROCK CARVINGS AXD PAINTINGS. 469 



similar course may be adopted, sketching and measuring each figure. 

 The width and depth of the grooves along the outlines should be 

 ascertained, and the direction which the rock slopes stated. In 

 any case of either paintings or carvings where the investigator has 

 not time or is unable for any other reason to copy the drawings, he 

 should describe them as fully as possible, and state their geographi- 

 cal position as nearly as he can, for the purpose of enabling others 

 to find thenVat any future time. 



In reproducing cave paintings from the notes taken in the field 

 they should first be outlined in pencil in their relative positions 

 from the sketches and measurements given in the field book, and 

 afterwards drawn in the colors in which they appear on the rock. 

 The carvings will be reproduced in the same manner and then 

 drawn in with Indian ink. Plates for publication should be drawn 

 the size, or some multiple of the size, of a page of the journal in 

 which they are to appear. It is generally found more convenient, 

 especially if the objects are small or numerous, to draw the plate on 

 a larger scale than that required, because it can afterwards be 

 reduced by photography or otherwise to the proper size for 

 publication. 



In describing the rock pictures of the Australian aborigines and 

 explaining how they were executed by the native artists, it will be 

 desirable to treat the subject under two divisions, one being headed 

 ^'Carvings" and the other ''Paintings." In the former the outlines of 

 the figures were in some cases cut and in others ground into the 

 surface of the rock with sharp-pointed pieces of stone ; in the latter 

 the pictures were painted on the rock in the required colors; dif- 

 ferent methods being employed in doing the work. 



Rock Carvings. 



Rock carvings are found in districts abounding in large masses of 

 rock, chiefly of the Hawkesbury series, but sometimes granitic and 

 metamorphic rocks are used, where the softer sandstones are not 

 available. Occasionally the rock surface containing the carvings is 

 almost level with the surrounding land, and in other cases the 

 drawings have been executed on the tops or sides of rocky masses 

 several feet high. Some of the smallest of the rock surfaces on which 

 these delineations appear do not exceed ten feet square, but they 

 are generally much larger, and in a few places the table of rock, 

 intersected here and there by fissures, was scarcely less than two 



PROG. AMER. PHILOS. SOC. XXXVI. 156. 2 F. PRINTED FEB. 14, 1898. 



