ROCK PAINTINGS AND CARTINGS OF THE ABORIGINES. 625 
that I have been the means of introducing such an active and diligent 
worker into the comparatively unbroken field of this branch of 
anthropology. 
I have been endeavouring for some time to copy and describe in 
detail* as many as possible of these specimens of pictorial art, showing 
the inventive and imitative faculties of a primitive people, and I hope 
that everyone who has opportunities of observing these drawings in 
different parts of Australia will make an effort to record them. This 
work should be done without delay, as these rock pictures are becoming 
fainter and less numerous every year by reason of the disintegration 
of the rock surfaces on which they are drawn. In several of the 
carvings found by me upon rocks, only parts of the figures could 
with difficulty be traced out; in others, the whole outline was faintly 
distinguishable ; whilst others were clear and well defined. The same 
remarks will apply to the paintings. In the numerous caves visited 
by me some contained paintings which were quite distinct, whilst in 
others the figures were in various stages of decay — some being barely 
discernible owing to the wasting of the rock under atmospheric 
influences, and in a few instances I was told by old residents that in 
caves which they once knew to contain paintings nothing is now visible. 
Early 'History . — Hock carvings were observed in the neighbour- 
hood of Port Jackson, New South Wales, by Dr. J. White f on the 
16th April, 1788, a few months after the colony was founded; and on 
the 14th January, 1S03, Captain Matthew Flinders* discovered some 
rock paintings on Chasm Island, adjacent to the coast of the Gulf of 
Carpentaria. At intervals, very few and far between, from these 
dates to the present time fragmentary references have been made by 
explorers and others to these specimens of aboriginal art, but very 
little work of any practical value for ethnological purposes has been 
attempted until recently. 
Geographical Range . — Rock paintings have been seen in West 
Australia at places far apart; they are found throughout South 
Australia from the southern portion to the Gulf of Carpentaria and 
Port Darwin. They are widely distributed over New 8outh Wales, 
and in Queensland they are scattered from Cape York to the southern 
limits of the colony. In Victoria they are found on the western side 
of the Victoria Range, county of Dundas, and on the north-eastern 
side of the Grampians, in the county of Borung, and probably exist 
in other parts of that colony. 
Rock carvings are neither so numerous nor have such a wide 
geographical range as the paintings, but they have been observed in 
all the colonies above named, with the exception of Victoria. I have 
instituted investigations in districts abounding in large masses of 
sandstone, which will, I hope, result in the discovery of native carvings 
in Victoria similar to those found in the other colonies. 
Paintings, how Produced . — Aboriginal rock paintings are executed 
in three different ways, which I shall call, for the purpose of my 
description, (1) the stencil method ; (2) the impression method ; and 
(3) the outline method or ordinary drawing. 
* This is the sixth of a series of papers on Aboriginal Rock Pictures contributed 
by me to different societies, and which have been published in their journals. 
t “Journal of a Voyage to New South Wales,” p. 141. 
X “Voyages to Terra Australis,” vol. ii. , pp. 188-9. 
