502 PROCEEDI^"GS OF SECTION F. 



river terraces have yet much to reveal on the subject to the diligent 

 and persevering inquirer; and, where investigation has been carried 

 on, the results have been calculated to encourage wider and more 

 systematic work in this direction. In Victoria chipped flint and 

 quartzite weapons and implements were found some years ago in Post" 

 Pliocene deposits near Bacchus Marsh. Similar evidences were dis- 

 covered in the valley of the Hopkins River, near Wickcliffe, and in the 

 terraces of the Wannon, near Glenthompson, also in the Hawkesbury 

 River valley. At the Adelaide Congress, Dr. Klaatsch, in his lecture 

 on the study of the aborigines of Australia, referred to the human-like 

 footprints found in the sandstone formations near Warrnambool as 

 very likely those of a " juvenile human individual of the Tertiary 

 period." 



Near Geelong, in the drift of an ancient watercourse on the 

 Barrabool hills, Mr. Muldea, a well-known Victorian naturalist and 

 geologist of forty years' experience, found many flints, water-worn 

 gabbro axes and other weathered evidences presvunedly of great age, 

 judging by the deposit in which they occun-ed. In the gravel of an old 

 river-drift near the Banvon River, the writer found several evidences 

 of a similar nature, including a water-worn gabbro axe, weathered 

 basalt wedges, and a gTinding-stone, the latter being from an excava- 

 tion made several feet deep, near the Barwon River. 



A few years ago, a flint axe of old workmanship was obtained 

 many feet from the surface during the construction of a well near 

 Lake Counewarre. Many other individual instances of the discovery 

 of aboriginal implements, &c., in old deposits might be cited, tending 

 to show, however inconclusively, that the Australian aborigines occu- 

 pied the country at a period veiy much earlier than that generally 

 accepted. If the theoiy be entertained that the Tasmanian blacks 

 were the true aboriginal race, and were driven out by the incursions of 

 a later invading race, it is reasonable to suppose that their gradual 

 retreat to the fastnesses of Tasmania before the pressure of invaders 

 took place before the separation of the island from the mainland. 



It may be noticed, in passing, that in the dialects of the 

 aboriginal tribes of the southern part of the continent many words 

 nieaning '" fire" or '' burning" were applied to volcanic vents long since 

 extinct. These names may have been handed down from the period 

 when volcanic action still lingered in the south of Australia, prior to 

 Vv'hich occupation by the black race had taken place. 



More definite data for deductions must be obtained before ap- 

 proximately determining the period of aboriginal occupation ; and, in 

 order to provide cumulative evidence from every part of the continent, 

 close and careful observation, time, and comparison of facts recorded 

 are necessary, for in this subject " the labourers are indeed few." 



From what we at present know, the position of man in the 

 geological record, as far as Australia is concerned, is " recent " ; but 

 with wider research it may be probably shown that, like the charac- 

 teristic flora and fauna of Australia, which are survivals of geological 

 periods long passed away in other lands, the stone age in Australia 

 may be, as it were, " an arrested development," and may be found to 

 have existed contemporaneously with that of the older lands as far 

 back as the Pleistocene period. 



