Australia was first discovered by Europeans, have been for periods incalculable the possessors of the soil.[1]
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| FIG. 175. (Longitudinal section at right-angles to the cutting edge.) |
Mr. E. J. Dunn made a large and valuable collection of stone implements when engaged in geological researches. He says:—"When connected with the Geological Survey at Maldon, Clunes, and other places, I took great interest in the relics of the blacks, and spent many days in hunting about the low ranges for tomahawks, in which pursuit I was moderately successful. I have between forty and fifty broken and whole ones, several sharpening-stones, and some pounds weight of chips of a great variety of rocks, though black basalt predominates. The tomahawks are nearly all of greenstone; the others are of porphyry or metamorphic sandstone. Nine- tenths of the broken heads have the shape shown in Fig. 175. When no stone was available in the immediate neighbourhood fig. 175. of their haunts, they carried thither pieces of a few pounds weight for many miles."
Mr. Reginald A. F. Murray, a Geological Surveyor employed by the Government, informs me that he has found stones in the Mirrn-yong heaps near
- ↑ In all other countries where the natural surface has not been interfered with, such remains may be sought for. The following extract from Mr. Blandford's work on Abyssinia is of peculiar interest when considered in connection with the facts above stated:—"In many places small chips of obsidian are found scattered about, frequently far from any locality where the rock is met with in situ. From their peculiar form, and the nature of the facets, there can be little or no hesitation in attributing these to human manufacture. They are evidently the chips struck off in the process of manufacturing stone implements, and are perfectly identical in shape with similar chips found extensively in Europe and India. A few were met with near Zulla, some were picked up on the highlands, and two or three in the neighbourhood of Magdala. But a much larger number were found at Rairo, near Af Abed in the Habab, in the centre of a granitoid country, and with no volcanic formation nearer than the hills between Ain and the sea, at least twenty miles distant. The fragments found are of no special beauty; no well-formed implements were obtained; and the occurrence of such chips is simply interesting as adding one more to the numerous countries in which traces of the early use of rude stone implements by mankind have hitherto been found."—Observations on the Geology and Zoology of Abyssinia, by W. T. Blandford, F.G.S., &c.
Earl says:—"The relics of a people who are supposed to have been of an anterior race to the present inhabitants are found in many parts of Java, and a description of several specimens of ancient instruments, accompanied by figures, is given in the Natuurkundige Tijdschrift voor Nederlandsch Indie for the year 1850. Some of these figures represent the exact form of the spear-heads of slate and 'baked sandstone' which are in common use among the natives of the northern parts of Australia, and are made by the natives of the interior, who understand the art of splitting them from the rough pieces with a few blows of au axe or hammer of greenstone."
Similar ancient implements are found in China, where they are venerated as relics of ancestors; and Darwin states that "in all parts of Europe, as far east as Greece, in Palestine, India, Japan, New Zealand, and Africa, including Egypt, flint tools have been discovered in abundance; and of their use the existing inhabitants retain no tradition. There is also indirect evidence of their former use by the Chinese and ancient Jews."
Many of the stone axes found in Europe, as figured and described by Darwin, Wilson, Lubbock, and others, differ little from the tomahawks used in Victoria. The stone axe of the St. Enoch's Croft canoe, made of highly-polished dark greenstone, figured in Wilson's Pre-Historic Man, is certainly an implement more completely finished than those usually found in Australia. The axe was discovered in 1780 in a canoe on the banks of the Clyde, at a depth of twenty-five feet below the surface. From its shape, one would suppose that it had not been fitted with a wooden handle.
