SOME STONE IMPLEMENTS USED BY THE ABORIGINES OF N.S.W. 305 



broken off larger pieces by percussion, or were procured by lighting 

 a fire on a suitable rock, and then pouring water upon it, resulting 

 in the flaking off of pieces. Portable stones, of the requisite 

 hardness and fineness of grain, could be heated in the fire, and 

 then cast into water, which would cause them to fracture, from 

 the fragments of which suitable pieces could then be obtained. 

 These fragments are chiefly diorite and quartz. 



Millstones. — No. 21 is a water- worn, oval shaped pebble of 

 quartzite, seven and a half inches long, six and three-quarter 

 inches broad, and two inches thick, which has been used by the 

 aborigines as a mill for grinding seeds, &c. Well-defined circular 

 hollows have been worn in each side by repeated use of another 

 stone. A nick has been made in each end, no doubt for the 

 purpose of fixing the stone firmly in position while in use. 



No. 22 is a specimen of the stone pounder, or ( ' upper millstone," 

 held in the hand of the operator. 



Barter. — Hatchets, and the stone for making them, as well as 

 sharpening stones and millstones, were amongst the articles of 

 barter at the great meetings which were held for the initiation of 

 the youths of the tribes. At the conclusion of these ceremonies, 

 before the people dispersed, a kind of fair was held, when natives 

 in whose country stone was plentiful would barter these things 

 with other people for reeds for making spears, rich plumage of 

 birds, &c. , usually found in the level country where suitable stone 

 is scarce — or for any other articles brought by the various tribes 

 for the purpose of exchange. 



T— Nov. 7, 1894. 



