656 
PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION F. 
NATIVE WATER CONSERVATION. 
The Australian native has not hitherto been given all the credit 
which is his due as regards making provision for future needs. 
Though, perhaps, generally thriftless and shiftless as respects water con- 
servation, he is not so much so as his detractors represent. In regions 
where rainfall is slight and storage precarious the native has supplied 
for himself storage after his own fashion. One such form is seen in 
his “ rock-hole.” Generally these water tanks are natural reservoirs, 
at times they are artificial. The native commences the construction 
of a new storage chamber by pounding upon the level surface of a 
rock face, constituting a catchment area. He places or allows surface 
water to lie in the slight cavity he has made. The pounding is after- 
wards renewed upon the water-softened rock — the process being 
regularly repeated until a cavity with a capacity of a few (two or 
three) up to hundreds of gallons is hollowed out. These rock-holes 
are often enlarged below, and some of these tanks will hold 600 or 800 
gallons of water. These they protect from pollution of animals or 
stealth of wild dogs by filling the mouth, or at times the entire cavity, 
with sticks or stones. Such rock-holes are found all over Central and 
Western Australia, proving often a godsend to the famished explorer 
and his suffering animals. 
NATIVE WELLS. 
These are sunk in soil or sand, and usually contain only a meagre 
supply. They are frequently hidden under the cover of a bush, or in 
the midst of "a thicket, being then easily “missed” by the thirsty 
seeker. AVarburton says of these wells that they are sunk with a 
slight curve in the down course, the water being thus shielded from 
the direct rays of the burning sun. thereby ensuring less evaporation, 
and the contained water is also kept cool. Here is evidence of fore- 
sight and wise skill on the part of the aboriginal conservators of 
water. Native wells often are enlarged in capacity at depth, are 
sometimes serpentine in the course down to water, and vary from 
2 feet or 3 feet to 15 feet or 20 feet in depth. It is most difficult in 
some cases to reach the water at all ; and at times the water contained 
is so terribly fouled by dead reptiles, birds, and rubbish that even a 
water-famished horse has refused to touch it. 
NATIVE DAMS. 
Dams of natives’ construction, for the purpose of conserving 
water, have been seldom met with. Ernest Giles (“Australia Iwice 
Traversed,” vol. ii., p. 93), at Pylebung, near Youldeh, A\ r est South 
Australia, described a crescent- shaped aborigines’ dam formed of clay, 
thrown up by native wooden scoops from the bed of the catchment 
space. It was five feet thick at the base, two feet thick at the top, 
five feet in height, some 20 yards long, and the opening was to the 
south — a unique specimen of engineering skill, for which skill they 
get no credit. The Boundary Dam of Giles is another instance. 
The lamented Leichhardt (Journal, p. 405) describes a dam so 
placed as to arrest a soakage of fresh water oozing from beneath the 
bank of the liobinson before the flow could reach the salt water of 
the river. The retaining wall of the dam was formed of clay. 
