134 Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria. 



200 years before 1830. The crater is occupied by a gum forest 

 and the size of some of the trees would alone throw some doubt 

 upon that date ; and Mr. Parker says that the tradition was so 

 vague and uncertain, that both he and his father (who was the 

 official Protector of Aborigines, in charge of the Aboriginal 

 Station at Mount Franklin), thought it was based on an infer- 

 ence from the shape of the crater, and was no proof that man 

 had seen it in eruption. This legend is, however, the most real- 

 istic that has reached me ; for the aborigines are said to have 

 blown the bellows of the blacksmith's forge, and declared that 

 was how the mountain went in the time of their forefathers. 



These traditions appear, at first sight, to show that the abori- 

 gines had some knowledge of the eruptions from the now extinct 

 volcanoes. When this evidence is examined more closely, how- 

 ever, its value appears less. It is all very uncertain. These 

 traditions are vague and indefinite ; and they have been recorded 

 only from memory, mostly at second or third hand, long after 

 they were heard. They are now little more than traditions 

 of traditions, and are much less graphic than the aboriginal 

 account of earthquakes.' Either the traditions themselves or 

 the accounts of them are contradictory. Thus, Dawson says 

 there was one about Mount Shadwell, and denies that there 

 were any regarding Mount Elephant or Mount Leura ; and had 

 there been any such, he no doubt would have known of them. 



VI. — The Evidence of Aborioinal Names of Extinct 



Craters. 



If the aborigines had seen any of the mountains in eruption, 

 they would probably have given them names which indicated 

 something to do with fire or smoke. It is difficult now to learn 

 the aboriginal place-names and their meanings. Most of the 

 existing vocabularies of the Victorian aborigines were collected 

 by untrained men, who had inadequate knowledge of the native 

 language, and generally recorded the words from memory, spelling 

 them on no definite phonetic system. Such evidence as we have, 

 however, does not connect the names of any of the Victorian 



1 Dawson : Op. eit., p.? 102. 



