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they have of making drawings on suitable faces of rock. The first specimen of these which we met with was near Camp F.B. 25, and consisted of a row of figures. The place was one which had been used evidently for a great number of years for depositing the bones of the dead. The figures are clothed and all in a similar style of garment, with what appears like a necktie just below the throat. Curiously this same style of figure, similarly dressed, occurred wherever paintings of any extent were found. In all there is an absence of the mouth, and what appears to be a halo round the head. These figures agree in these particulars with those found by Grey on the Glenelg in 1837. The colours used are red, yellow, black, and white, the black being the snake. The origin of these figures affords an interesting field for speculation and investigation. That they date back before the advent of the first known white men we know from the discoveries of Grey, but evidently they must have seen men with clothes at an earlier date, possibly shipwrecked mariners or Malays who used to come across to the coast to get beche-de-mer, it is probable that they copied their first drawings from some done by white men, and the result being pleasing to them the art was handed on; that they should adhere so closely to one design shows either a great lack of originality or that they attach great importance to that particular figure. From the extent of the area over which these drawings occur I should imagine they are not pecucharcoal and the other colours argillaceous earth, specimens of which we found carefully wrapped up in paperbark parcels in most of the camps which had been vacated hurriedly owing to our approach. The drawings are finished with greater care and attention to detail than one would expect to find in such a primitive race, and they apparently value them considerably, choosing places, as far as possible, where they will not be injured by the weather. In all the more elaborate drawings the colours appeared to have been mixed simply with water, and could be smudged by rubbing with the finger; but in one or two places on the Glenelg I saw smaller drawings and marks in red which were made with some other pigment, and were not affected even by wet. In the other drawings the snakes appear to be devouring human beings, and in one drawing eggs are shown inside liar to one tribe. We found none south of the Charnley River, and how far north they extend I do not know."

Mr. Brockman points out that -these drawings are to be found on almost every smooth surface of sandstone rock throughout the western portion of the Kimberleys lying south of Admiralty Gulf. The existence of these artistic efforts has excited considerable interest among ethnologists, and by many they are deemed to be evidence that in some remote the northern portion of this State was peopled by a race much higher in the scale of civilization than that which now exists.

The Western Australian aborigines, like those of the other divisions of the continent, are without doubt