118 STONE IMPLEMENTS OF THE ABORIGINES OF 
locality called Phenix Park, has pointed out to the writer a mass 
fence wssifaid been completely covered out of sight a new one had 
been up above it. <A little examination of the circumstances ~ 
n put 
brings out plainly before the inquirer the evidence that objects of 
various kinds might in the course of a few years be buried to 
great depths. The banks of the Hunter are often steep, and lay 
bare as much as 30 feet of soil which has been deposited by the 
river itself. Owing to the windings of the stream an inundation 
from time to time occasions the forming of a new channel, and the 
blocking up of an old one. Acres of soil are removed from one 
place ni deposited in another. Also in time of flood, where a 
tree or a snag has been in the way, eddies have been formed, and 
these alee out numerous holes 5 or 6 feet deep ; these holes and 
the old channels are in the course of time filled up, covering over 
and burying such objects as may have found their way into ‘them. 
There is still another agency at work by which stone hatchets 
might quite easily be buried 50 or 60 feet deep. This was 
forcibly impressed upon the writer as an meer nat and educated 
settler accompanied him from Tilligerry Creek, near Raymond Ter- 
race, to Port Stephens, and explained what wa aioeeca during 
previous years. For about 2 miles the ride was over successive 
waves of sand-hills, on which, however, scrub was growing and 
trees of a very rotten-wooded species of eucalyptus. At one place the 
settler pointed out where a great wave of sand, presenting a rather 
steep front and * feet in height was steadily invading a secluded 
marsh. By the constant action of the wind the sand wave had en- 
croached by the psi of 20 yards on the level space in the course 
of nine years. ow, this whole district was much frequented by 
aborigines. Some of the more remarkable of the stone implements 
now exhibited were obtained from the settler at Tilligerry Creek, 
who accompanied the writer on this expedition. If, then, in the 
days of Captain Cook, a stene hatchet had been dropped at the 
base of the wall of moving sand described above it would now be 
upwards of 200 yards away, and 60 feet deep in the heart of 
the great-sand drift extending for some miles back from the ocean. 
us a m a pit or well in such drift, and finding a 
hatchet 60 feet deep, might claim 100,000 years for its antiquity, 
while 100 would be nearer the correct figure for the duration of 
time required to explain the discovery. 
For phenomena of the same kind we have only to visit some - 
the suburbs of Sydney. 
a sand dune, out in the ee eg of Botany. Not long ago cin 
roof of a cottage was to be seen sticking out of this sand dune. 
us writer has atten stopped ¢ ff the sand on to the shingles of the 
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