ROCK-HOLES USED BY ABORIGINES FOR WARMING WATER. 213 



ROCK-HOLES USED BY THE ABORIGINES FOR 



WARMING WATER. 



By R. H. Mathews, l.s., Corres. Memb. Anthrop. Soc. 



Washington, U.S.A. 



[Bead before the Royal Society of N. S. Wales, December 4, 190 /.] 



In a communication to the Anthropological Institute of Great 

 Britain on this subject in 1896, 1 I described a number of holes 

 in rocks which had apparently been used by the aborigines in 

 cooking their food. The mass of sandstone containing the holes 

 therein described is situated within Portion No. 1139, of 24 J acres 

 in the parish of Manly Gove, county of Cumberland. 



About thirty miles southerly from the ovens above referred to, 

 I discovered two similar "pot holes" in the surface of a large table 

 of Hawkesbury Sandstone on the side of a gully or watercourse, 

 at the head of Dead-man's Creek, within Portion No. 19, of 960 

 acres, in the parish of Eckersley, county of Cumberland, and about 

 two miles northerly from the Woronora River. 



During wet seasons a small stream of water runs over the large 

 rock on which these pot-holes are found, but in a dry time the 

 water merely trickles along the lowest parts of it. The black 

 lines shown on the diagram, represent grooves cut into the rock 

 surface, apparently for the purpose of conducting this trickling 

 stream of water past the holes or ovens marked No. 1 and No. 2, 

 the water flowing in the direction of the arrows. (See diagram.) 

 Unless the natives had intended to use the pot-holes for some 

 purpose, it is unlikely that they would have cut these grooves, 

 which must have been a work of much labour, considering their 

 rude stone tools. 



The pot-hole marked "No. 1," is a little over two feet in 

 diameter, and about a foot deep. "No. 2 "is one foot nine inches 



1 Journ. Anthrop. Inst., xxv., 255-259, plate 17. 



