100 
HORN EXPEDITION—ANTHROPOLOGY. 
specimens these grooves have been worn nearly through the whole thickness of 
the slab. The hand-stones are either water worn pebbles or conveniently sized 
blocks usually of a more or less dense sandstone, and many of these have been worn 
by constant friction into flat thin slabs. One such stone collected at Tempe 
Downs was a spheroidal quartzite pebble, the white colour of which probably 
formed an attraction. 
As suitable bedstones cannot be everywhere obtained they are carried from 
camp to camp often for long distances; the hand-stones, however, can be picked 
up anywhere and were frequently found lying about in abandoned camps. 
Native Spindle (Plate VI., Fig. 10). 
This simple apparatus was frequently seen in the native camps; its con¬ 
struction is as follows :—Two thin sticks from 6 to 7 inches long and curved so 
as to form arcs are cleft at their centres and placed at right angles so that the 
clefts correspond. Through the clefts passes a slender straight shaft of about the 
same thickness as the cross-pieces, the proper position of the latter being at a 
point considerably nearer one end of the transflxing shaft than the other, and 
their concavities being turned towards the shorter moiety. By rotating the 
instrument in the axis of the straight shaft the loose hair or fur is first spun into 
a simple strand which is wound, as it is made, in figure of eight fashion upon 
the axis and between the curved cross-pieces; by the twisting together of two 
such strands the string in ordinary use is produced. The rotatory movement 
is given by twirling the spindle upon the thigh with the palm of the hand. . 
Another pattern exists (Tempe Downs) in which tliere is only one curved 
cross-piece. 
Musical Instruments. 
Various methods of producing sounds, as an accompaniment to the voice, 
are mentioned in the section dealing with corrobhorees, viz:—by the concussion 
of two boomerangs or of hardwood sticks; by beating the ground with either 
implement; by striking, with the half-closed hand, a part of the person and, also, 
by means of a simple tubular instrument. 
This last consists of a piece of hollow stem (or branch) of a small tree, 
probably a mallee eucalypt, which has been tunnelled by termites. By sending 
the voice through this the reverberations of the naso-pharynx are intensified, and 
a monotonous droning sound is produced. The only example collected was that 
used in the Atnimokita corrobboree, which has been described in a previous 
section. This is 24 inches long, 2^ inches wide at the larger end, and 2 inches at 
