182 R. ETHERIDGE, T. W. E. DAVID, AND J. W. GRIMSHAW. 
(4) At most sheltered spots along the coast of New South Wales 
where shell life is abundant, as along the shores of coastal lagoons 
and estuaries, there are to be seen mounds of shells, accumulated 
by the Aborigines, and consisting of the shells of edible molluscs, 
fragments of charcoal, bones of fish etc., together with skinning 
knives made of flakes of hard rocks, bone needles, stones for 
opening and cracking shells, etc. From the position of some of 
these shell mounds, on the edges of swampy flats formed of silt 
brought down by rivers into what were probably open estuaries 
at the time that the Aborigines gathered shells there, it is evident 
that the shell mounds must be of somewhat ancient date. 
(5) Sand dunes—Remains of some antiquity, of human work- 
manship, have been discovered in some of the sand dunes of 
‘Victoria, as described by the late C. S. Wilkinson,! and one of the 
writers.2 These remains consist of flint chips, a sharpened stone 
tomahawk, and several bone spikes or needles. In view, however, 
of the rapid rate at which dunes form and drift these may not 
necessarily have had a very high antiquity, though as they were 
lying beneath sand dunes at least two hundred feet high, they 
must have been tolerably ancient, 
B. Indirect Evidence.—This evidence would argue a much 
greater antiquity for man in Australia than the above quoted 
direct evidence. It is chiefly twofold. (1) The existence of man 
in Tasmania argues that he crossed from the Australian continent 
thither probably either before the formation of Bass Strait, oF, 
at all events, if he crossed in canoes, at a time when Bass Strait 
was far narrower than at present, as neither the Victorian nor 
Tasmanian Aborigines had any knowledge of the art of building 
sea-going canoes, as far as we are aware. If the first arrival of 
man in Tasmania took place at the most recent time when Tas- 
mania was united to Victoria, it must date back certainly many 
thousand years. There is, however, good ground for supposing 
a eee 
1 Report on the Geology of the Cape Otway District, 1865, p. 2. 
2 R. Etheridge, Junr., Trans. and Proc. R. Soc. Victoria, 1876, Vol. xU-» 
pp- 3, 4; and Records Geol. Survey N. 8S. Wales, 1889, 1., pt. i., p- 15- 
