Antiquity of Man In Victoria. 131 



formerly curator of the Warrnambool Museum ; his successor, 

 Mr. Jas. McDowell -^ and Mr. A. C. MacDonald.^ This hypo- 

 thesis is discredited by Messrs. T. S. Hall, W. Howchin, E. F. 

 Pittman, R. Etheridge, G. B. Pritchard, T. S. Hart, J. Dennant, 

 J. Stirling, and A. W. Howitt,'' some of whom, however, have 

 not seen the specimen. If the impressions are aboriginal foot- 

 prints then man must have been in the Warrnambool district a 

 considerable period ago. According to E. D. Cooke, in a hand- 

 bill, printed at Essendon, 21st January, 1892, this specimen 

 proves man to be of Pliocene age in Australia. There is no 

 need to go as far back as that, for there is no evidence that 

 the rock is of Pliocene age.'' Only one fossil bone, as far as 

 I know, has been found in this formation, and that gives no 

 evidence that the rock was deposited at the time of the giant 

 marsupials. 



The Warrnambool dune limestones are some 70 feet thick ; 

 and they must have taken centuries, probably many centuries, to 

 accumulate. The slab with the impressions was found in Kellas' 

 quarry, in section 24 of allotment 28, in the Borough of Warr- 

 nambool. This position is in the heart of the dune limestones, 

 which extend for a little more than half a mile both to the south 

 and to the north, as well as for a considerable distance east and 

 west. The slab was dug up at a depth of 54 feet from the sur- 

 face, and therefore comes from the lower part of the limestone 

 series. The position of the quarry renders it improbable that 

 this slab could have been formed at the close of the dune series, 

 on the flank of the main mass of the formation. The rock was 

 found on the 5th December, 1890, and was promptly given to the 

 Museum. Unfortunately it is an especially friable variety of 

 " Warrnambool sandstone," and all the original surface of the 

 imprints has crumbled away. Mr. McDowell, the curator of the 

 Museum, says that he was told that the imprints were lined by a 



1 McDowell, James: "Footmarks in Rocks." Ibid., vol. ii., No. 2, n.s., p. 216, Sydney, 

 2l8t December, 1899. 



2 MacDonald, A. C. : "Alleged Traces of Primitive Man." Austral. Min. Stand., \ol. 

 xxxi., 1904, p. 274. 



3 Ibid., pp, 230-231, 273-274. 



4 See for example, Pritchard, G. B.: " The Sand Dunes of the Coast." Geelong Natura- 

 list, vol. iv , No. 3, March, 1895, pp. 43, etc. 



9a 



