146 
president’s ADDRESS — SECTION F. 
is the following: “In June, 1870, an aboriginal named Jacob was 
condemned m Queensland for a serious crime committed by him, 
and a plot was laid by some members of his tribe to rescue him. 
A message-stick, which had been conveyed to Jacob by some means 
o which (lie gaol authorities could get no knowledge, was found in 
is possession, and a native trooper, belonging to another part of the 
country, gave an interpretation of the symbols as follows : — 6 Two 
blacklellows come up in two days ; seventeen days ago. One black- 
leliow come up to where this fellow (Jacob) sit down. The track 
shown on the stick means from the place where the blackfellows set 
out to Brisbane.’ The message meant that the aboriginals were 
taking steps to aid Jacob in some attempt to escape.” Message- 
sticks are in use throughout all the country. Mr. Curr relates that 
he was once travelling with a black boy, when the latter produced 
irorn the lining of his hat a bit of a twig about an inch long, and 
having three notches cut on it. The native explained that he was a 
dhomka , that the central notch represented himself, and the other 
notches— one the youth sending the message, the other the girl for 
whom it was intended. It meant, in the words of Dickens, ‘ Barkis 
is willing.’ . The dhomka sewed up the love symbol in the lining of 
Ins hat, carried it thus for months without divulging his secret to his 
sable mends, and finally delivered it in safety to the girl.” Their 
boomerangs and worn merahs were favourite implements for displaying 
t eir artistic skill and ability in carving. In Breton’s work on New 
k outh \Y ales, published in 1833, is a plate show ing some war imple- 
ments carved in the conventional manner ( Plate R) ; examine 
carefully the boomerang, when you will observe the bust of a man 
carved thereon. 
About seven miles from Mount Douglas head station, in the 
northern portion of South Australia, is a large native quarry, 150 
feet long by 20 feet wide, and 12 feet deep. The stone is a gritty fissile 
quaitzite, eminently suitable, by its lightness and grinding properties, 
tor the nether stone used by the natives whenever they bruise or pound 
the various leguminous seeds they collect. (The upper stone was 
generally a large pebble.) The nether stones removed from this 
quarry slightly varied in size, yet seldom exceeded 18 inches lon<*, 12i 
inches across, and 3 inches in thickness. One in my collection is a 
perfect oval in shape; it weighs 1411b.; is 191 inches long, 121 
inches across, and 11 inches thick ; the upper edges being beautifully 
bevelled off. The stone removed from the Mount Douglas quarry 
equals 1,333 tons cubical measurement ; and as the tribes are few in 
this part of the continent, and the members of these tribes are in no 
case numerous, it will be seen that this quarry must have been worked 
for ages, and must have produced, allowing one-fourth for waste, some 
71,000 stones for the use of the natives. 
In every part of the continent there are numbers of quarries 
for ochre, stone tomahawks, stone spear-heads, stone chisels, and stone 
picks. IV ells of peculiar construction, and w'eirs of immense size, 
have been sunk or erected by the natives, which show ingenious 
ability to invent and carry out in detail. Drains for fishing purposes, 
with weirs at certain intervals, are now in existence in Victoria and 
South Australia. The sinking of these drains to a depth of 6 and 8 
feet, cut in some places through the solid rock, and winding in and 
