1897.] MATHEWS — ROCK CARVINGS AND PAINTINGS. 475 



A variation of this method of drawing was to impress the hand in 

 the manner described and before removing it from the rock to 

 squirt a different color around its margin. This may be more cor- 

 rectly called a combination of the impression and stencil methods. 



In the 'districts visited by me in collecting information on this 

 subject I have found impressed hands^ in comparatively few caves, 

 the stencil method being that generally adopted. It may be that 

 impressed hands had some particular meaning. In both these 

 methods of drawing it was always the palm and never the back of 

 the hand which was used. 



3. Objects which could not be either stenciled or impressed, 

 such as men, animals and a number of nondescript figures and 

 devices appearing on the walls of these rock shelters, have been 

 drawn in outline in the color selected for the purpose. In some 

 cases the objects are shown in outline only ; in other instances the 

 space within the outline is painted with a solid wash of the same 

 tint ; whilst not infrequently this space is shaded by means of lines 

 drawn either all in the same color or in two or more different tints. 



It is not very clear what the nature of the coloring matter was in 

 all instances, but it undoubtedly possessed the durability of an ordi- 

 nary pigment. In the drawings which appear in red there is no 

 doubt that most of them are done with red oxide of iron, found as 

 a clay and known as red ochre. The white color would probably 

 be pipe clay or fine white ashes from the camp fire. The few 

 drawings done in yellow are produced by an oxide of iron found as 

 a clay in the same districts where the pipe clay and red ochre 

 occur. The black color appears to have been done with charcoal 

 or soot. 



In cases where it was necessary to use any of these colors in a 

 liquid form they were first reduced to a powder and were then 

 mixed with water or with oil obtained from some animal. When 

 applied in a dry state a piece of the required color, as a lump of red 

 ochre, or pipe clay, or charcoal, was held in the hand of the opera- 

 tor and the necessary lines drawn with it upon the rock, the sur- 

 face of which was probably first moistened with animal fat or water 



^The earliest reference I can find to the " impression method " is that by Sir 

 George Grey. He states that in a cave in the district of York, West Australia, 

 there is " the impression of a hand which had been rubbed over with red paint 

 .... and then pressed on the wall " (^Two Expeds. N. W. and IV. Aus- 

 tralia (1841), Vol. i, pp. 260, 261). 



