Fifty-eight 
THE SOUTH AUSTRALIAN NATURALIST 
June, 1953 
A. i| 
LENS 
V BUTTON 
Button. Oval 
CORE 
Boat, 
Dumbbell. 
Teardrops. ? Button. 
Fig. 2 . — Most common 
overlap. Libyan Glass and Darwin 
Glass are much more siliceous, 
varying up to 89% SiCL for the 
latter and 97% SiO* for the 
former. 
In Figure 2 an effort has been 
made to suggest the development 
of the commonest forms of Aus- 
tral ites. The lens and the lens core 
are by far the most abundant, the 
“flanged button” is the most rare 
and most beautiful, and there are 
many aberrant forms, few in num- 
bers, such as ladles, helmets, flat 
discs, pine seeds, etc. A large num- 
ber are broken and nondescript 
fragments. 
It was for some time the writer’s 
opinion, following Suess, Michel, 
and others, that Australites com- 
menced as spheres or blobs of glass, 
shed in a vast shower from a flam- 
ing light-metal or stony meteorite, 
or swarm of meteorites, passing 
right across southern Australia, 
possibly from N-W to S-E. There is 
evidence that they all reached the 
earth as cold bodies, at a time 
“geologically recent but historically 
remote.” 
Graphic analysis has shown that 
the largest round forms were cores, 
shapes of Australites. 
sometimes called “bungs”; the nexty 
largest were medium to small 
cores; the next largest the flanged 
buttons, and the smallest the more 
perfect lenses. While a great num- 
ber still preserve their original 
perfect form, the majority have 
llaked as well as eroded by sand- 
blast in semi-arid areas, or by 
alluvial wear in the moister areas. 
They are found on all types of 
surfaces, irrespective of the kind 
of rock, the amount of rainfall, 
etc., and all appear to have spun 
in their flight, rotating rapidly in 
a plane at right angles to their 
direction of movement. Unbroken 
and unabraded specimens usually 
show pitting or other marks on 
the rear surface and concentric or 
spiral flow ridges on the front sur- 
face where that surface has not 
been flaked away. 
The Australian aborigines were 
the first to find Australites, and 
used them at times to make small 
cutting and scraping implements, 
or as objects of magic, medicine, 
and mystery. They were given 
different names by different tribes; 
a collection in the British Museum 
is recorded as being called map- 
