r5 



APPENDIX 



Plate XIII. 



THE ASH-BED AND ITS CONTENTS. 



It is very unusual to find in localities frequented by Australian blacks, for 

 camping grounds or other purpose, any but small heaps of ashes. This one 

 was of very considerable size however, occupying the whole floor of the 

 rock-shelter, and heaped somewhat against the wall on which the figures 

 were delineated. On careful examination these ashes were found to contain 

 fragments of bone, and stone implements. Amongst the former were 

 represented the common Wallaby {Halmaturus dorsalis); the 'Possum 

 {Phalangista vulpina); the Flying Squirrel [Petaurus taguanoides)\ the 

 Kangaroo Rat [Hypsiprymnus murinus); the common Bandicoot (/Vraw<?/(fj 

 nasuia), and the common Creek Lizard {Amphibolurus Sranchialis. De Vis). 

 There were also pieces of the shell of the large fresh-water Unio, from the 

 Condamine waters ; and of Helix Cunninghamii, from the adjacent scrub. 

 No vestiges of human bone were met with, and if any sepulchral rites were 

 performed at this spot they seem to have been of the nature of eating and 

 drinking. To gain the more luscious morsels indeed, all the medullary bones 

 of the animals mentioned had been split across, and in some instances slight 

 cuts had been made on the shafts of the long bones, to determine, as it were, 

 the points of fracture. 



The stone implements which were also amongst the ashes, eight of 

 which are figured (Plate XEII.) are made of quartz rock of different 

 degrees of silification from almost pure amorphous quartz to phonolite 

 They are mostly flakes which have been variously chipped, but none of them 

 polished. 



No regular cores were met with but most of the specimens exhibit the 

 "bulb of percussion." in attestation of their genuineness. They were evidently 

 intended for cutting instruments (especially Nos. 7. 8, 9), and several have 

 their cutting edges slightly chipped on one face rendering them finely serrated. 

 They may have been fastened into handles by " native pitch," as is 

 customary amongst the tribes of the north-west. Some conform to certain 

 types presented by examples of the European pre-historic stone age (Nos. 3 

 and 5) viz., elongated so-called spear hea ls plane on one side and with 

 a mesial longitudinal ridge on the other. 



It is evident that all these implements would serve a useful purpose, as 

 knives and scrapers, in connection with the comestibles enumerated, and 

 might have been used in making the numerous chiselled figures, especially 

 the drilled holes, on the rock wall. 



