AUSTRALIAN QUATERNARY CLIMATES AND MIGRATION 51 



semblance to a bone-implement made by the aboriginal and 

 "probably not by any more primitive forerunners." He states 

 that "the cuts were manifestly made by a steel-edged implement, 

 such as a shovel, which crushed and broke crystals of pyrites 

 filling the interstices of the cancellous tissue. This was con- 

 clusive proof that the cuts had been made after pyritization of 

 the bone, which must have taken place after immersion in the 

 sub-basaltic river gravel and the contained mineralized waters." 

 Kenyon made this statement 34 years after De Vis, who saw the 

 bone in its original condition, had declared it was an implement 

 fashioned from a portion of a rib of a Nototherium (De Vis, 1900) . 

 Be Vis was an authority on the cuts made on bone by predatory 

 animals and he examined closely the nature of the cuts; he did 

 not refer to the state of the pyritic impregnation. Spencer and 

 Walcott (1914 circa) also specialized in cuts made on bones by 

 animals and they state that they were convinced that some of the 

 cuts were the work of Thylacoleo, but others were not. They state 

 that "the late Dr. A. W. Howitt, who had the opportunity of seeing 

 the Buninyong Bone before it was coated with size to preserve it, 

 informed one of us that he was quite satisfied that none of the 

 marks were of recent origin, and that they had one and all been 

 made before the bone was deposited where it was discovered. This 

 statement of Dr. Howitt 's seems to be correct from the general 

 aspect of the marks, and Mr. De Vis has corroborated him by 

 making a cut in the bone himself for comparison." They scout, 

 too, the suggestion by Gregory (1904) that the bone may be the 

 result of an accident, the shovel of one of the miners having 

 possibly cut into the bone and broken it where it was lying in 

 the silt, the shovel at the same time having driven mud into the 

 cut-surface thus hiding its recent formation. Anyone who has 

 carefully studied the bone, they say, could not possibly give any 

 credence to such an explanation "for the shovel has not yet been 

 invented which could produce accidentally marks of this kind." 

 But they consider that the fact that there is no record concerning 

 the whereabouts of the bone from the time it was found until it 

 came into the mine manager's hands is a flaw in the chain of 

 evidence regarding its authenticity. 



De Vis thought the implement was a scraper but Spencer and 

 Walcott considered it extremely doubtful that the specimen was 

 ever intended for use: Howitt expressed no opinion as to its 

 purpose. 



The section in the Great Buninyong Estate Mine shown in 

 Fig. 6 was compiled from particulars given by Hart (1900). 



