HUMAN FOODS. 43 
for, as far as appetite is concerned, it gives me the greatest 
satisfaction.” 
“To Dr. Beckler is due the credit of having pointed out, first 
of all, when releasing Lyons and Macpherson from their perilous 
position, that the Marsilea fruit formed part of the food of some of 
the aboriginal inland tribes, the use of the plant having providen- 
tially been communicated to Lyons and his companion by the 
natives. Previously we were not aware of the economic utility of 
this kind of fern.” (Mueller, Zrans. R.S. Victoria, 1862.) 
For full notes and physiological observations on the Nardoo 
plant, Joc. c??. 
In Brough Smyth’s Adorigines of Victoria, i., 383, will be 
found a drawing of these stones, such as are used by the natives 
of the Darling. The following description is given :— 
“The slab, generally of sandstone, is about twenty-two-inches* 
in length, fourteen inches in breadth, and about one inch in 
thickness. The handstones (Wadlong) are round, or of an oval 
form, and vary in size. One is four inches and a-half in breadth, 
and one inch and three-quarters in thickness; and another is six 
inches in length, four inches and a-half in breadth, and three 
inches in thickness. The Wa/long have hollows cut in them, so 
as to be more easily held by the hand. 
“Mr. Howitt says that the stones here figured are like those 
usually seen at Cooper’s Creek. In the flat stone there is a 
depression which leads out to the edge bya channel. In grinding 
grass, or portulaca-seed, a little water is sprinkled in by the left 
hand, and the seeds being ground with the stone in the right 
hand form a kind of porridge, which runs out by the channel into 
a wooden bowl (Peechee), or a piece of bark. It may then be 
baked in the ashes, or eaten as it is, by using the crooked fore- 
finger as a spoon. The term used for grinding seeds is Bowar- 
dakoneh. 
* In the Technological Museum isa very fine pair of stones from the Korningbirry 
Creek, one hundred miles N.W. of Wilcannia, and eighty miles south of Milparinka, 
N.S.W. The material is of fine-grained sandstone, inclining to quartzite. The dimensions 
of the bed-stone are 23 x 14 (widest part) x 2to 2 inches, while those of the hand-stone are 
5¢X 4X 1jinches. The handstone has no hollow cut init, but it is well-worn, and it is,, of 
course, impossible to say what its original thickness was. 
