THE TASMANIAN NATURALIST. 
between Glenleith and Charlie Hope’s es¬ 
tates, near the River Plenty; and a 
graphic description of this locality will 
be found in Ling Roth’s book on the 
aborigines of Tasmania (page HU-151). 
Another quarry was discovered in 1890, 
if I am right, by Mr. Harold Bisdee, 
on Coal Hill, near Melton Mowbray, and 
1 subsequently found a third one on 
iSbene, near Pontville station. 1 have 
no doubt that many more native quarries 
will be discovered if a proper search 
is made, but for the present very little 
is known about their features. The most 
important part connected with them has 
already been pointed out by our veteran 
geologist, R. 11. Johnston. Native quar¬ 
ries are invariably situated on such 
place where the palaeozoic mudstone or 
sandstone h»3 been altered by eruptive 
dfaibas or basalt. It is certainly a fact 
that al! quarries hitherto known are 
situated on such places, but it Joes not 
necessarily follow that there must also 
be a quarry wherever such a locality is 
found. On the whole, it is a good 
plan, when searching for native quarries, 
to keep to the contact line, between the 
eruptive rocks and the palaeozoic strati’, 
pin! it is prettv certain to assume that 
after a short time success will he the 
reward. It is obvious that palaeozoic 
strata of different nature were differently 
altered (metamorphosed) by one .and the 
same eruption of volcanic matter. The 
sandstones were turned into a more or 
less coarsely-grained porcellanite, while 
the mudstones were altered into the va¬ 
rious kinds of splintery, silicious chert, 
commonly, though erroneously, called 
flint. In a future article I shall have 
an opportunity to dwell more especially 
on the petrographical features of the 
Tasmanian amorpholitiies, as I have al¬ 
ready ascertained some very peculiar 
facts. According to the nature o.f the 
altered rock we can naturally distin¬ 
guish two groups of quarries, those 
irom which the altered mudstone 
was obtained, and those where tne por- 
cellanite was quarried. The quarry near 
the River Plenty and that on Ooal Hill 
are instances «of the first type, while 
that of Shene seems to be, as far as 1 
know, tiic only instance of the second 
type. It seems that the quarry on 
-Coal Hil! is the most important, as 
far as extension and intensive work 
goes; and a detailed description, to¬ 
gether. with that of some taf the imple¬ 
ments found, is therefore lot particular 
interest. As already stateft, the quarry 
was discovered by Mr. Harold Bisdee, 
and subsequently visited by Messrs. 
Johnston, Morton, and Walker, but, ex¬ 
cept a note in Walker’s paper on the 
Tasmanian aborigines, I only know that 
a short account, accompanied by a photo¬ 
graph, was published in a southern 
weekly journal. It appears that the ac¬ 
tual situation of this quarry was only 
known to the few persons mentioned, 
and even the local people hardly knew 
of its existence when I visited Melton 
Mowbray for the first time in 1906. I 
tried in vain to discover the quarry by 
following the contact of diabas and mud¬ 
stone, hut I soon found out that it would 
take me many days of diligent research to 
find it. However, on enquiry, Mr. Bis¬ 
dee, on whose property Coal Hill is situ¬ 
ated, kindly supplied the necessary in¬ 
formation, and, guided by this, Mr. Nich¬ 
ols, of Melton Mowbray, who knows 
tlie country well, could show me the 
exact locality. Anybody interested in 
this subject could Jo no better than to 
communicate with Mr. Nichols, if he 
wishes to visit the quarry. Coal Hill 
is a low. fairly thickly wooded hill, about a 
mile and a half north of the hotel at Mel¬ 
ton Mowbray (see Fig i,. A shallow gully 
divides it in a western and eastern spur, 
on tiic crest of which the quarry is 
situated. It is a remarkable bit ot 
scenery, this old quarry. Right on the 
top of tile ilat hill, in fairly open coun¬ 
try, the ground is covered with thou¬ 
sands and thousands of angular frag¬ 
ments of a blue, hard, and splintery 
chert. It almost looks ns if the whole 
ground had lately been covered with 
fresh road metal (see Fig. 2). This pic¬ 
ture show, a view of the native quarry 
on Coal Hill. On close examination, 
shallow holes of about live to six feet 
in diameter will be observed, having a 
low wall of debris heaped a non ml them. 
It is evident that these holes were pro¬ 
duced by excavating the rock. The 
thickness of the debris strewn about 
may be about lift, to 2ft., and its area 
about 200 to 300 feet square. All the 
fragments are of a very even size — 
about five inches in length—though of 
course there are numerous smaller frag¬ 
ments, but there are hardly any larger 
than six inches. Every specimen we 
took up showed sharp edges, and 
most of them showed more or less 
extensive traces of use. The most in¬ 
teresting feature of these fragments is 
certainly the fact that every one ot 
them, of all the thousands we saw scat¬ 
tered, had orice gone through the hands 
of a human being. We may also take 
it as certain that all the specimens we 
now see in the picture are either refuse 
or specimens that broke while being 
shaped, or, unfinished implements. Well- 
finished specimens are very rare, and it 
appears that the aborigines chiefly ex¬ 
cavated the raw material, and, having 
perhaps roughly shaped a suitable speci- 
( 18 ) 
