PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS — SECTION F, 
145 
fact that the sand-bed of the creek has a further depth of 15 feet to 
20 feet. The wavy line across the whole represents a crack in the 
rock, caused doubtless by the lower portion having fallen away, 
leaving little or no support to the upper structure. 
Some of the natives on the Einkc River are very ingenious in 
carving walking-sticks. One in my possession is in the form of a 
snake, the head forming the knob; the scales are marked down to the 
ferule ; near the head and on the back of the stick is carved a native 
armed with spear and shield; below him is carved a large cicada; 
below this a large spider, and twining round the stick is raised a 
small snake in the spaces between the other objects, but so as not to 
touch them. The accompanying sketch ( Plate Q) represents a 
walking-stick in the possession of the Hon. Sir E. T. Smith, of 
.Adelaide; it represents a hawk whose habitat is said to be on the 
Ih'n ke River. In this carving the bird is shown to have caught a 
snake by the back of the head, its talons clasping the reptile firmly 
round the neck in such a position that the snake is powerless to injure 
the bird. A second and smaller snake is seen to have coiled itself 
round the body of the larger one in the grasp of the bird. The head 
of the bird forms the knob, and the snake forms the walking-stick 
itself. The carving is most beautifully done. Similar walking-sticks 
are in the possession of His Excellency the Gfovernor (the Earl of 
Kintore) ; the Hon. S. J. Way, H.C.L., Chief Justice of South 
Australia ; and of Mr. Craigie, of Adelaide. 
It is well known that the aborigines had a system of picture- 
writing, and of conveying intelligibly to other natives the meaning of 
messages by means of cuts or marks, and of tribal distinctions by 
means of cutting or tattooing some particular part of the human 
frame. The untaught native has produced exactly the same lines, 
figures, and ornamentation that laid the basis of the artistic designs 
of the great architects of Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, such 
forms being in use there at the present day and universally adopted. 
The “ meander ’ or zig-zag, symbolising water » and the 
symbol of fire »»>»>> are found cut on numberless waddies, 
wommerahs, boomerangs, shields, and bull -roarers. xAnother marked 
structural source of ornamental motive may be found in the chequer 
from the plaiting of rushes and fibre in a net or dilly-bag ; it is not 
difficult in following this clue to trace the evolution of certain well- 
known types of pattern, all these at the same time falling into and 
expressing the contours of the implement or vessel they decorate. 
I’he idle streaks, cuts, or notches of the knife are not in themselves 
ornamental ; but when arranged into some sort of pattern, they then 
become the fundamental elements of ornament and design generally. 
Throughout Australia the natives have conventional forms for trees, 
lakes, and watercourses, and in some instances so simple as to be in 
reality symbols rather than diagrams or pictures, and intelligible to 
ail the tribes that look upon them. Their message-sticks were almost 
always carved or marked either as an aid to the memory of the bearer 
of the message from one tribe to another, or as actually recording the 
message itself. We know that they often recorded events which 
they deemed worthy of being held in remembrance on their throwing- 
sticks. In Brough Smyth’s “Aboriginals of Victoria,” vol. 1, p. 355, 
