ABORIGINAL SMOKE SIGNALS. 511 



and manipulate his signal as to make it rise an appreciable and 

 siitRcient height against the wind to secure his object. Some 

 signals owe their special significance to their peculiar rush against 

 the wind. 



W. G. Stietton, Esq.. special magistrate, Borroloola, N.T., says, 

 " Their (the aborigines) principal means of communication is by- 

 putting up smoke." 



Ernest Giles, " Travels in Central Australia, 1872 to 1874, p. 13 

 and p. 176, " Signal fires were lighted immediately in order to 

 coUect the whole tribe." 



Mr. L. A. Wells, explorer and surveyor, attached to the Elder 

 Expedition, 1890, describes the use of smoke signals at Mount 

 Squires, W.A., when a signal was observed at seventy miles distance 

 by the aid of a glass (the signal being a short-lived small one), 

 •and their use also on the Queensland western boundary. 



Mr. S. W. Herbert, Survey Department, S.A.. illustrates these 

 signals by the case of s.s. Omeo, 1870-1871. Her passing Cape 

 Yorke was noted and signalled from an adjacent islan.l . and conveyed 

 by the natives' signal line of smokes to Port I'arwin, so that resi- 

 dents there were aware of her approach two days prior to her 

 arrival. 



Mr. Frank Naische confirms the statement, saying that such 

 anno'incement of movements of vessels was quite usual there. 



*When the late Messrs Cowan and Bullimore were killed in the 

 railway accident of July 21st, 1891), news of the event reached 

 Charlotte Waters Telegraph Station the following day. Natives 

 there, learning the facts, conveyed the tidings that same evening to 

 Mr. Cowan's Crown Point Station, fifty-six miles distant, by smoke 

 signal, and it was known by the station blacks that evening, though 

 treated by the manager and the whites as an idle or confused report. 

 About 1 p.m. of the next day confirmation of the news reached the 

 manager, Mr. 1'. G. Magarey, in writing, sent from the telegraph 

 station. Meanwhile the news had been travelling on, ancl was 

 known at the Johannesburg Aboriginal Mission Station, 26-5 miles 

 north-west from Crown Point, very early in the mornin!:.r of Wed- 

 nesday to the whites there, having been conveyed by smoke signal. 

 A Crown Point Station hand (formerly on Lake Hawden Run, near 

 Kobe) was at the mission station, and on hearing the news and 

 thinking his own manager was dead, rode homewards, eighty-five 

 miles, to Mr. Parke's station. He there learned that Mr. Cowan, 

 owner of Crown Point, was dead, and returned to the Johannesburg 

 Station to complete his errand. As the incident above narrated 

 indicates marvellous powers of message sending by smoke signalling 

 on the part of the natives, it may be well to glance at how, conceiv- 

 ably, it could be accomplished. There are many signals in every 

 day use in station life in Central Australia. The native station 

 hands there use smoke signals as a matter of daily convenience. 



* T. G. Magarey, t'ormerlv inanatrer of late .Tas. Cowan's Crown Point Station, X.T. 



