50 AUSTRALIAN QUATERNARY CLIMATES AND MIGRATION 



Mrs. Sylvia Whincup, Mineralogist to the Museum, separated 

 out the minerals composing the yellow clay. Quartz-grains were 

 common, the larger well rounded, the smaller angular; clear 

 quartz was abundant and reef -quartz common. Other minerals 

 present were magnetite, olivine, and volcanic glass indicating that 

 a scoria-cone was in action while the clay was being deposited. She 

 also found zircon, tourmaline, and rutile — minerals that have 

 obviously been transported from some distant source. In view of 

 the fact that no streams now enter, or have entered Pejark Marsh 

 in the past, one can only assume that these minerals are wind- 

 borne. A small microscopic freshwater shell found in the clay 

 may have had a similar origin. 



The Pejark Marsh succession is typical of surface and sub- 

 surface transported deposits on other parts of the lava-plain. 

 The records of a number of bores put down through such, show 

 that the surface to some depth consists of dark or black sediments 

 under which is a yellow clay. 



Howitt (1904) attributes to James Dawson the tradition of the 

 aborigines of western Victoria that fire came out of a hill near 

 Mortlake, and "stones which their fathers told them had been 

 thrown out of the hill by the action of fire. " If there is an histor- 

 ical background to the tradition, Mt. Shadwell is the nearest 

 scoria-cone to Mortlake, but Noorat, Keilambete, and Terang are 

 all vents not far distant. 



Summarizing the evidence that has accumulated in connection 

 with the Pejark Marsh Millstone, it may be confidently stated 

 that it is of Kecent or Postglacial age. The yellow clay in which 

 the Millstone was found is covered by black clay, bedded tuff, and 

 soil, that have been deposited up to the present time without a time 

 break, but there may have been a short time interval between the 

 yellow clay and the overlying black clay. Estimated by the meas- 

 ure of climate, the millstone is less than 3,000 years old, having 

 been covered by the wind-borne material at the concluding phase 

 of the arid period of the Postglacial Optimum. It belongs to some 

 horizon of the Murundian in Hale and Tindale's succession (supra 

 p. 38). 



The Buninyong Bone (Plate 2, Pig. 8) was found in the Great 

 Buninyong Estate Mine at Buninyong, near Ballarat, towards the 

 close of last century. Apart from the question of its authenticity, 

 a doubt persists as to whether it is an implement and has been 

 fashioned by man. 



Kenyon (1936) claims to have examined it "while it was still 

 in a fairly fresh state." He condemned it because it had no 



