Volume 58: Sir George Macleay correspondence, 1848-1880: No. 135

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[Page 135]

the flat surfaces of some of the land [indecipherable] near Sydney, which I believe are the work [?] of a still older people than the so called Aborigines unless they once possessed a knowledge of metals & subsequently returned to the use of the most primitive of implements, an exceedingly unlikely thing.  You know those carvings of [indecipherable] use the term, do you not, on the rocks all around Port Jackson, of whales, porpoises, sharks, &c.  they could scarcely have been cut without the aid of metal.  I have written to Keiss asking him to provide drafts of these for me if he can, together with [indecipherable] & [indecipherable] of Aborigines, which just now are at a premium with the [indecipherable], owing to the wonderful Australian like skeletons that have been exhumed in the north of Scotland, within Musket shot by the [indecipherable] of Keiss Castle.  If you can get out all or any of these things, I mean the drawings of the bones, you shall have them for your Department in Paris in 67, where if I [indecipherable] prophecy is not verified, I trust from my heart to see you in your old capacity in Europe.  The account you

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