60 The South Australian Naturalist. 



NATURE'S WAY. 



By A. G. Edquist. 



'Many an ^on moulded earth before her highest, Man, was born, 

 Many an ^on too may pass when earth is manless and forlorn. ' ' 



A walk among the sandhills at Fulham discloses to the 

 observant eye traces of a vanished race of primitive people. 

 Primitive they were, for they belonged to the Stone age. Three 

 generations ago they flourished, as did their forefathers for 

 thousands of years before them; but w^ith the coming of the 

 white man — a more adaptive people — these simple children of 

 Nature failed in the struggle for existence to survive the vices 

 and virtues of a higher civilization. And all this in less than a 

 century of human progress. 



Nature students who desire to see this evidence for them- 

 selves will find, just behind the Fulham rifle range, traces of an 

 aboriginal camping ground and school, where technical training 

 of no mean order was imparted by the more skilled workmen to 

 the less competent. The workshop and the camp, which were 

 situated some little distance apart, were walled in by the horizon 

 and roofed with the sky. No faulty ventilation, unsuitable light- 

 ing, nor overcrowding marred the efficiency of the work accom- 

 plished, for these were the days when the skill of the teacher 

 counted for more than fine piles of bricks and mortar. The 

 workers have gone, the camp is deserted, but broken tools, chips 

 of stone, and an occasional damaged spearhead, discarded by 

 some clumsy student, serve to locate the working arena in which 

 the blacks continued to labour after the white man had settled 

 on these shores and had cast about the glass containers of his 

 more favoured beverages. 



These flakes of stone and of glass, which tell- so vividly and 

 accurately the story of the past, are not mere fragments, such as 

 one finds in a quarry, but are characteristicall}^ shaped. Each 

 fragment exhibits a form and fracture which arise from a well- 

 directed blow or from strong jDressure. The hammer used by 

 these simple yet skilful workmen was of the most primitive 

 nature, and consisted of a rounded, water-worn stone, such as 

 one may find in a river-bed or upon a shingle beach. Although 

 the broken remains of stone hammers are not uncommon, the 

 bone implements used for serrating the sharp edges of the spear- 

 heads are not in evidence. Probably Nature, in her simplifying 

 processes, has reduced them to the dust from which all living 

 things spring and in time return. 



