—it is even probable—that in such spots there may be discovered relics of the ancient inhabitants of the soil.
The Aborigines point to some of the recently extinct volcanoes, and say that fire came from them once. Whether they have learnt anything of the nature of these hills from the whites, or whether their forefathers had, and transmitted to their descendants, any knowledge of a period when they were active points, is not determinable.
Some amongst those who came first to the colony assure me that the Aborigines designated hills known to have been once active points as Willum-a-weenth—the place of fire—and described them as in former times giving forth smoke and steam.
In the most of cases—in nearly all—the geological evidence is certainly against the supposition that the Aborigines could ever have had knowledge of these points as once active volcanoes.
Assuming, however, that Australia was not peopled until long after the extinction of the volcanic fires, it is not probable that the Aborigines were unacquainted with fire. The rubbing together of two branches in a gale of wind—as suggested by the Rev. Mr. Taylor—might have caused a destructive conflagration in a climate as dry as this of Victoria. The fall of a heavy bough on a mass of pyritous quartz rock might have lighted the grass; a flash of lightning might have kindled the dry bark of a gum-tree; or the slipping of a mass of rock in summer might have ignited the withered ferns. On some days in summer the air at Melbourne is very dry and very hot.[1]
Solar radiation, as measured by a black-bulb thermometer, is sometimes on a clear day in summer as much as 160·2°; the temperature in the shade has been as high as 114°; and on one day, when a fierce hot-wind blew (23rd December 1857), the highest temperature in shade was 109·2° ; and the wind-gauge registered a force of 12½lbs. per square foot. It is conceivable that over a vast tract covered with dry grass, dry ferns, and withered and powdered gum leaves (which, owing to the oil they contain, are highly inflammable); the long rubbing together of dry boughs, agitated by the wind; or the tread of a heavy animal, such as the kangaroo or the native bear, on masses of hard pyritous quartz rocks, causing them to strike and grind against one another—might cause a conflagration.
Whether these things happened or not, in the winter there would be no fires. Necessity must have compelled the Aborigines to strain their faculties in invention during that season. How they came to invent a means so simple and efficacious as the fire-sticks we can only conjecture.
The Aboriginal tells us in his own words how fire was first obtained; and in the proper place the reader will find the story.
- ↑ Fires due to meteoric agencies are not rare in Australia. In the Age of the 8th December 1874 it is stated that during a thunderstorm two large cocks of hay on the farm of Mr. V. Anketell, at Coburg, were struck by lightning and took fire; and that at Bolingbroke a farmer had a cock of hay set on fire in like manner during the same storm. In the Geelong Advertiser of the 2nd February 1875 mention is made of a severe thunderstorm, when a tree was struck and shattered by lightning and a log fence set on fire.
