GENERAL AND INTRODUCTORY. 13 
general form and sides is accomplished in a few hours, but the formation and finish 
of the finer points is a longer process, involving the expenditure of much time and 
patience, and, as witnessed by the writer, frequent failures before perfection is arrived at. 
There is an accessory instrument commonly used in conjunction with the spear 
by the aborigines of North Queensland and North-Western Australia which is 
of rare occurrence among spear-armed nations. This is the Throwing Stick, or 
“Woomera,” a piece of flattened wood about two feet six in length and three to six 
inches wide. A small bone or hard-wood peg is attached at an acute angle to 
the further, distal, end of the instrument, and this fits into a notch in the proximal 
end of the spear. This accessory instrument gives as it were double length and 
leverage power to the arm of the spear wielder, who can thus launch his weapon 
with irresistible force against all but the most impenetrable objects. Among the 
Kimberley, Western Australian, Natives, the flat surfaces of this ‘‘ Woomera,” or 
Throwing-Stick, are, as previously stated, commonly ornamented with carvings presenting 
various rectilinear patterns, while the handle end, among the North Queensland 
Tribes, is often decorated with pieces of shell, or the scarlet seeds of that cosmopolitan 
tropical creeper, Abrus precatorius, half embedded in a matrix of spinifex cement. 
A peculiarity observed by the author as usually distinguishing the Woomeras of 
Queensland from those of Western Australia is the. circumstance that the peg 
attached to the extremity in the Queensland examples is affixed in the plane corre- 
sponding with the broad side of the weapon while in those from Western Australia, 
it is invariably at right angles to it. 
The mechanical means utilised by the Australian aborigines for the production 
of fire invite brief attention. In Queensland the mechanism usually employed consists 
of two slender light-wood rods some four or five feet in length. One of these 
is placed horizontally on the ground and held firmly in this position with the 
feet, while the second rod is placed vertically upon it, with its tip resting in a 
slight indentation made in the horizontal one. The vertical rod is now rotated 
backwards and forwards between the two hands at so high a speed that the lower 
one produces sparks which are communicated to some dry grass placed close at 
hand. From this, with a little nursing, a large fire is soon established. For 
convenience of carriage, the “broader” ends of these two fire-sticks are inserted 
into a short wooden sheath, which is commonly covered with spinifex gum, decorated, 
as are the handles of the “‘ Woomeras,” with the scarlet seeds of Abrus precatorius. 
This rotatory method of producing fire is, it would appear, practised also in-India and 
