THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 87 



Butterflies, family Lycaenida?, or Blues. By Mr. A. H. Westley. 

 — Shell, genus Cypraia, from Ceylon. 



After the usual conversazione the meeting terminated. 



EVIDENCE OF THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN 

 VICTORIA. 



By W. H. Ferguson. 

 (Read before Field Naturalists' Club of Victoria, 9th Jidy, 1894-) 

 In parts of the Hopkins River valley, near Wickliffe, two 

 distinct terraces exist, and as it is claimed that evidences of the 

 valley having been occupied by man during pre-historic times 

 can be obtained from both these terraces, a description of them 

 may be of interest. They are composed of sand and sandy loam 

 deposited by water. The Silurian rocks are visible in the bed 

 of the creek, and the Newer Volcanic Basalt forms an escarp- 

 ment on the eastern bank. Formerly the older terrace probably 

 filled the valley from bank to bank, and the river flowed at a 

 slightly higher level than it does at present. The lowering of the 

 river may be accounted for by the stream having cut through an 

 outcrop of Silurian rock lower down, and thus drained a portion 

 of the valley that in flood-time would resemble a lake, and 

 through which the river flowed. Relics of man have been found 

 in this terrace at a depth of two feet. To account for these 

 relics it is necessary to suppose that, when the water of the 

 stream was low, men, presumably aborigines, camped on the 

 river flats, made fires, manufactured weapons and implements, 

 lived and died on, and perhaps were buried in, the soil of the 

 flats, and that during floods the stream brought down sand and 

 mud, and deposited it over the flats, thus covering over the relics 

 of the blacks. In time, as the river cut its way deeper into the 

 rock, the flood waters no longer spread over the upper terrace, 

 but wore away part of it nearest to the bed of the present stream, 

 and the remaining portion is now left on the west side of the 

 river. A new flat was formed, to which in flood-time fresh soil is 

 added. From this upper terrace, from the surface down to a 

 depth of two feet, which was the deepest excavation noted, 

 siliceous and other stones were collected, also pebbles of white 

 quartz, in part waterworn and part angular, indicating that flakes 

 had been struck from them, and sharp flakes of quartz, quartzite, 

 flint, and common opal. From the lower terrace hatchets in the 

 rough of porphyry and greenstone were obtained, together with 

 chips of stone and shells of the freshwater mussel Unio (sp.) 

 Pieces of porphyry were common ; these had been carried from a 

 distance for the purpose of forming hatchets from them. Traces 

 of " ovens " were common in this terrace. About two miles 

 below Wickliffe, in a sand deposit just below the table land, 



