pleted tools. Where a cutting had been 
made to form a road, not only m.iid 
the imp ements be si en stroking out of 
the bank, but the 1 brown-down clods of 
earth, when broken up, yielded a rich 
harvest. The last camp was on the 
high ground south of the neck that joins 
North and South Bruny Below, just 
above the sandy beach, shells could be 
found in plenty. But on the top of 
tile steep rises no shells were available, 
but numbers of chips and implements 
were to be found. Apparently they 
fed below, but camped up in the scat¬ 
tered timber of the ridge above. 
Amongst the stone tools scrapers are, 
pf course, much the most common. 
These follow the rule of all Tasmanian 
implements, or tronattas, as they are 
called, in that one side is quite fiat or 
smooth. f*n this side is placed the 
thumb. The other side has more or 
less of a keel. In this keeled side is 
any Chipping of the edge that may be 
carried out. This holds good also of 
knives and choppers. The commonest 
reiaper i s that which : s roughly oval in 
form. Three perfect specimens were 
found in the potato patch by Mr. Clive 
Lord. This form is either quite flat, 
or it graduates, through thick at one 
side, up to a distinct pyramid. Ex¬ 
actly similar forma are found all over 
the wor'd. Those from Trance, South 
Africa, Australia, and Tasmania are in¬ 
distinguishable :r. form. The Austra¬ 
lian small forms are, however, absent in 
Tasmania, and there the large varieties 
are most abundant. Another form is 
the large thin flake, like a six-inch flat¬ 
tened scallop shell. This has the con¬ 
cave, smooth thumb side, and the oppo¬ 
site keeled side chipped along its edge. 
A beautiful example from Lake Tiberias 
was given me by 'Mr. A. X. Lewis, 
Though these are fairly frequent in Tas¬ 
mania, the only example that I got in 
Australia came from the adjacent south, 
east coast, near Capo Liptrap. A third, 
and somewhat similar, scraper is the 
quadrilateral, which has the smooth 
concave thumb side, and the opposite 
edge frequently chipped. This variety 
is quite common, both in Bruny and in 
f*.E. Victoria. In .both places, also, is 
found the miniature, barely half an inch 
long, instead of being three inches. Tip, 
irregular scraper is, of course, that 
oftenest found. Tt may be any shape, 
but always has a flat surface for the 
thumb and the opposite edge chipped. 
Sometimes, when there is a flat surface 
on each side of the stone, both of these 
surfaces are counted as thumb sides. 
Then we .find opposite chipping on both 
sides of the stone. Dr. Noetling says, 
in "Proc. Boy. Boe., Tas., 1909,” p. a, 
that this is an error on the part of the 
aboriginee, and that it occurs in less 
than one per cent, of cases. 1, how¬ 
ever, found it in 10 per cent, .of all 
Bruny implements, though these have 
not been sorted out for that purpose. 
Unhesitatingly, I should say this is a 
purposeful form, being a good stone, 
used on both sides, but on apposite 
edges. Another tronatta. or imple¬ 
ment, might hi- described as the “moun¬ 
tain range,” which it resembles on a 
three or four-inch scale. At one end 
this runs down into a sharp triangular 
point. The base is, of course, quite 
flat, and is often marked for the thumb. 
It gives a powerful scraper at the 
point. Its purpose one can only guess 
at; but, possibly, it was used for digging 
tlie much-valued grubs from trees in a 
manner similar to the cockatoo. Al¬ 
though concave spear scrapers were not 
common, Dr. Pulleine and I gathered 
half a dozen good samples. 
Wed ochre is found in abundance, 
but local quarries of it were not 
found. The beach pebbles were 
readily made into pounders, the 
flat stones serving for anvils for the 
('dire. This, when mixed With fat, gave 
:■ warm covering, as we 1 as a decora¬ 
tion, to the long ringlets of the men. 
We found also the stones used in cut¬ 
ting tlie women’s hair, for it was chop¬ 
ped short and worked up into string. 
The nature of the stone throughout is 
altered sandstone or mudstone. It is 
formed bv the intrusion of molten dia¬ 
base pushing up from below, and chang¬ 
ing the texture of the superimposed 
sandstones by its intense heat. All 
along the cliff 8 of North Bruny the ver¬ 
tical diabase columns, capped by the 
horizontal sandstone layer s can be 
plainly seen. With the possible excep¬ 
tion of ochre, no tronutta were found, 
and could not have been loea'lv ac¬ 
quired. 
19 
