GEOLOGICAL AND ETHNOLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS— ETHERIDGE. 49 
in the line of drainage.”* May it not be possible that the starting 
point of the Burragorang Valley was some great earth-movement, 
possibly connected with the great faultings which “probably took 
place towards the close of the Tertiary epoch, ”f one of which, 
known as the Lapstone Hill fault, assisted in the formation of 
the abrupt eastern margin of the Blue Mountains ? 
With regard to more recent deposits, many of the gullies running 
up through the Upper Marine beds, and the Coal-measures, exhibit 
small waterfalls, around which are deposited considerable masses 
of calcareous tufa. 
The Aborigines of the Wollondilly and Nattai Valleys, must, 
from local accounts, have existed in considerable numbers, and 
are now only represented by interments, carved trees, wizards’ 
hands, and charcoal drawings in rock shelters along the precipitous 
escarpments. 
The first objects investigated under this head were the “Hands- 
on-the-Rock,” which had been reported by Mr. Cuneo. The 
“rock” consists of a huge mass of Hawkesbury Sandstone 
(Plate XII) about seventeen feet in breadth and length, hollowed 
out on the side overlooking the river to the extent of six feet. 
It is perched on the side of a gentle rise from the Wollondilly, 
having rolled from the higher ground above, and alongside the 
track from the Nattai Junction to Cox’s River, in the immediate 
south-west corner of the Parish Werriberri. The cavernous front 
of the rock is fifteen feet broad, and twelve feet high. On the 
back wall are depicted a number of red hands, both right and 
left. The principal ones, arranged roughly in a sigmoidal curve, 
are reproduced in Plate XII, with the extended fingers invariably 
pointing upwards. The other hands are irregularly scattered to 
the right and below those just referred to, and altogether there 
may be as many as seventeen. Under the principal hands are 
four white curved bands, resembling boomerangs or ribs, the 
whole of the hands being relieved, as is usually the case with 
these representations, by white splash-work. The hand-marks in 
this shelter differ, however, from any I have seen before by 
an unquestionably previous preparation of the rock surface for 
their reception by incising the surface to the shape of each hand, 
thus leaving a slightly raised margin around each. I have 
recently given f an epitome of our knowledge of these hand 
imprints, their method of preparation, and supposed significance 
sufficiently full to render any further reference unnecessary at 
* Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., 1866, xxii., p. 445. 
f C. S. Wilkinson, Notes on the Geol. N.S. Wales, 2nd Edit., 1887, p. 70. 
t Records Geol. Survey N.S. Wales, 1892, iii., Pt. i., p. 34. 
