632 
PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION F. 
This cave, facing north-west, is 64 feet long, 16 feet deep, and 
about 16 feet high, with a floor consisting of earth, on which are strewn 
cinders and some shells of the fresh-water Unio, which was, I am 
informed, considered a delicacy by the aboriginals. 
There are three left hands and one right hand stencilled in yellow 
and six left hands stencilled in white on a black background produced 
by the action of smoke on the wall. The snake drawn in white in this 
cave resembles the figure of a snake carved on the Bora ground shown 
m Plate 111. accompanying the paper on the Bora,* read before the 
Royal Society of New* South Wales in July, 1894, by Mr. K. II. 
Mathews ; the four remaining figures, represented in Pig. 7 a on the 
plate, whose outlines are drawn in white and the rest of the figure iu 
black, are, I believe, intended to represent the tails of the male lyre 
birds, which are found in great numbers around this place. There is. 
also trace of another figure drawn on the wall, but as it is apparently 
in an unfinished condition it is impossible to say what it was intended 
tor. Three hands stencilled in white complete the drawing. 
Pig. 8 —These drawings are displayed in a cave situated in 
Portion No. 18, in the parish of Corrabare, county of Northumberland, 
and is only a short distance from the W oil ombi -Maitlan d road. This 
rook -shelter, the floor of which consists of sand, mixed with ashes and 
strewn with fragments of bone and mussel-shells, is of the following 
dimensions, viz.: — Length, 42 feet; depth, 22 feet 6 inches; and 
height, 12 feet. 
In addition to the drawings which I have reproduced there are in 
this cave indications of a few other figures, some apparently of women, 
drawn in red and white, but too much weathered to be copied with 
any degree of accuracy. 
Pig- 9. — In a small rock-shelter on Narone Creek, in the parish 
of Corrabare, county of Northumberland, within a grant of 320 acres 
to Pobert Milsom. The bands, arms, and foot shown in this figure 
have been stencilled. The cave is in a rock forming portion of the 
talus-slope of the valley through which the creek winds its way, and 
is very small, being only 5 feet 6 inches in height, 12 feet long, and 
6 feet 3 inches in depth. Besides the figures shown there are visible 
traces of five hands and of some red and also black lines (perhaps 
tribal marks). 
My principal object in preparing this paper is to record some of 
the strange characters now rapidly disappearing in such a way that 
the student of anthropology in the future may be assisted in piercing 
through the mists of obscurity surrounding the origin of our native 
races. In different parts of the ‘Wollombi district, where I found 
these paintings, I also discovered several rock carvings, which I intend 
to describe in a subsequent paper. 
It is now generally agreed that the figures in black are drawn 
with a mixture of charcoal and animal fat, and this is perhaps the 
compound that is used in preparing the black background for figures 
to be stencilled on. 
In each of the caves containing the drawings shown in Bigs. 2 
and 3 I found a small piece of soft sandstone of a reddish colour that 
is very rarely seen in any of the rocks of the Hawkesbury Series, and 
* Journ. Roy. Soc. New South Wales, xxviii., pp. 98-129. 
