476 MATHEWS — ROCK CARVINGS AND PAINTINGS. [Nov. 19-, 



along the outline of the figure to be drawn, which would have the 

 effect of assisting the color to penetrate it. 



Whether the color was applied as a liquid or a solid, water or grease 

 appears to have been employed to work it into the surface of the 

 stone and give it greater permanency. This is easily demonstrated 

 by rubbing the figures with a wet cloth, which has no effect upon 

 them; but if the same test be applied to the initials of white visitors 

 written with chalk or charcoal in some of the shelters they rub off 

 at once. 



Vegetable colors were also known to the aborigines. Mr. E. 

 Stephens says^ that the natives of the lower Murray river and Ade- 

 laide plains painted red bands on their shields by means of the 

 juice of a small tuber which grew in abundance in the bush. Sir 

 George Grey stated^ that he imagines that the blue color used in 

 paintings seen by him on the Glenelg river in West Australia was 

 obtained from the seed vessels of a plant very common there, which 

 on being broken yielded a few drops of a brilliant blue liquid. I 

 have myself stated^ that the apple tree and also the grass tree of 

 Australia yield a red gum or resin, which has the property of stain- 

 ing anything a red color. "* 



Explanation of Plate X. 



All the figures represented on this plate are drawn to scale from 

 careful sketches and measurements taken by myself, and the posi- 

 tion of each cave on the public maps is accurately described by 

 reference to the nearest purchased land in the vicinity. All the 

 caves are in New South Wales. 



Cave I consists of a weather-worn cavity in a large boulder of 

 Hawkesbury sandstone within Portion No. 6, of fifty and three- 

 quarters acres, in the parish of Bulga, county of Hunter. The 

 interior is forty-two feet long, seventeen feet from the front to the 

 back wall and eight and a half feet high. It faces S. 70° E., and 

 has apparently been used as a camping place by the aborigines. 



^Jour. Roy. Soc. N. S. JVales, xxiii, p. 487. 



2 Two Expeds. in N. IV. and IV. Australia^ i, pp. 262, 263. 



^ Iroc Roy, Soc. Victoria, y'li, N. S.,p. 146. 



* Mr. E. M. Carr mentions that the natives of the Leichhardt river, Queens- 

 land, imprinted their hands, stained with red ochre or blood, on a conspicuous 

 tree {TAe Australian Race, ii, p. 301). 



