BY FRITZ NOETLING, M.A., PH.D., ETC. 5 



Seen sideways, the rig*]!! edge, instead of being straight, 

 as it would have been had the chipping been carried out 

 in one direction oni}', presents a peculiar broken line. 



It is obvious that such a crooked edge cannot be of 

 the slightest use, for any purposes whatsoever, and it is 

 probably thanks to this error of the workman who 

 manufactured it that it was preserved. The question is, 

 how did this curious error — for error it must be — arise? 

 I think the rather flat indical face forms the key to the 

 solution of the problem. The Aborigine having finished 

 the trimming of the left edge, proceeded to take the 

 rjg'ht edge in hand, and in doing so he inadvertently 

 turned the specimen over, and, without noticing it, com- 

 jnenced to chip from the indical face towards the pollical 

 face along the upper part of the right edge. Suddenly 

 hie noticed his mistake, and he at once proceeded to 

 continue the trimming in the orthodox way — that is to 

 say, from the pollical face towards the indical face. 



There is no other way of explaining this very 

 peculiar wa}- of chipping, but it throws a flood of light 

 on the mental condition of the Aborigines. To our 

 modern mind it seems absolutely unintelligible why this 

 useless working edge should not have been turned into 

 an exceedingly sharp one by chipping away the indical 

 face of the upper and the pollical face of the lower part 

 of the right edge. The intelligence of the Tasmanian 

 could not conceive this idea. His mind lacked the in- 

 ventive genius which promotes progress. He had been 

 accustomed to trim his implements by blows from the 

 flat pollical face towards the the convex indical face, but 

 it never occurred to him to make an attempt in the 

 opposite direction, and even if he had inadvertently 

 made a mistake he at once returned to the time- 

 honoured fashion. Had he only continued the chipping 

 in either direction all along the edge once the mistake 

 had been made, he would have found what a much 

 more efficient cutting edge he could produce by bi-faced 

 trimming. But he did not do so, and it is almost pathetic 

 to think that here we have a specimen which might have 

 led to the manufacture of more efficient implements, 

 and thus perhaps changed the fate of the ,whole race, had 

 this most simple invention been made. As it has not 

 been made, it proves that those inventions, which appear 

 to us so simple that we are accustomed to take them as 



