had a stone cutting mipleniei 

 specimens being beautifully fini 

 from inspection. It seeras aim 

 of so short a, time we should be unable to determine for certain 

 whether the tomahawks of the Tasmanians had handles or not. 

 There is some strong evidence that tliey had Thus, e.g., whil« 

 Mr. Gunn says* " The tomahawks were held in the hand and 

 under no circumstances as far as I know or can learn, were they 

 ever fixed in any handle," a Mr. Rollings, in a letter addressed to 

 Dr. Agnew, and dated 5th May 1873, says that in his youth he 

 was constantly in the habit of seeing the aborigines of Tasmania 

 and of mixing with them occasionally, and he affirms that their 

 tomahawks had handles which were fastened to them in the same 

 way as a blacksmith fastens a rod to chisels, being always weJl 

 secured with the sinews of some animal. 



But even if it be conceded that the Tasmanians used their axes 

 without handles, the admission does not in the least invalidate 

 the present argument as to their origin, for we find that the 

 natives of the northern tributaries of the river Darling do not in 

 all cases attacb handles to their stone hatchets, but many use them 

 in the same manner as the Tasmanians used their rough stone 



3 consequence t 



I the r 



rormmg the large stone tools. In Tasmania they were always 

 chipped to an edge, in Australia they were almost universally 

 ground and polished. But even here exceptions in Australia 

 indicate a former more primitive manufacture. The cliipped stone 

 tools of the Tasmanian are Palaeolithic, while the usual ground 

 ones of the Australian are Neolithic, but while only the one kmd 

 (Palaeolithic) is found in Tasmania, Ijoth kinds are found side by 

 side on the mainland, a state of things which indicates in the one 

 case the existence of but one human stratum and in the other the 

 existence of more than one. " If therefore," saysj Mr. Brough 

 Smyth, "all the stone implements and weapons of the Australians 

 be examined, one set might be put apart and classed as the 

 equivalents of those of the Paheolithic period of Europe, and 

 another set as the equivalents of those of the Neolithic, a man ot 

 one tribe will have in his belt a tomahawk ground and highly 

 polished over the whole of its surface, and not far distant from 

 his country a people will use for tomahawks stones made by 

 striking off" flakes." 



based upon differeno 



