50 THE OVEN-MOUNDS OF THE ABORIGINES IN VICTORIA. 
Sites oF OVEN-MOUN 
As cooking was concerned, the partons for ready access to 
water explains at once why so many ovens are to be found along 
the banks of creeks and rivers, as well as by the margin of lagoons 
and lakes. In a hollow of the Woodbourne Creek, near Meredith, 
there is an oven so near the channel of the creek that the ashes 
fall over the bank into the water. Rising out of the ashes is the 
stump of a tree four feet in diameter. About a quarter of a mile 
from this oven, in the direction of Cargerie, there is another oven 
between these two extremes—the lowest and highest points. 
are found, as just shown, on the very brink of a creek, or a few 
— from it, or in an angle, or on a gently rising slope, or on a 
steep brow with volcanic rocks wigtiend out close by, and on the 
flat ground or heights beyond. A point to be noted is that they 
are to be found on the eastern bank of a creek as well as on the 
reagan exposed apeeneny . the full strength of the westerly 
an rth-westerly gales. e explanation why sites appear to 
have a haa chosen exposed to so much inconvenience is probably 
to be found in this,—that as the ovens are ve merous, suitable 
Ww r 0 
readily in what are locally called crab-holes and in small depressions 
on the surface of the ground. Moreover, it is to be remembered 
that ovens which appear now to be quite shelterless, were probably 
not so when used by the aborigines. The destruction of trees by 
the white settlers affects the question. Restore the hundreds or 
thousands of trees which have been destroyed, and the oven, which 
appears now to occupy a bleak and exposed position, will be well 
sheltered behind a vast expanse of branches. There is an oven on 
the outer slope leading to the lagoon near Woodbourne, well 
gti at eee owing to the thick growth of trees. Now this 
= alee have often reposed pen hot winds under the branches 
of these very trees which are so near the cooking-ovens. From 
x the agreeable shade of the spreading eucalyptus, no doubt, 
