FL464494

445

MISCELLANEOUS NOTES

FIGURE OBSERVATIONS ON DISCHARGING WAR BOOMERINGS FROM ARTILLERY

DESCRIPTION OF THE WAR BOOMERING

FIRST SECOND THIRD FOURTH FIFTH SIXTH SEVENTH

[sketches of 7 different boomerangs with dimensions]

I have been for many years carefully and leisurely selecting those specimens of this instument
which I have in my possession from the Aborigines, they are of the best description, and are
made of Myall wood, the most esteemed for war purposes by the native Tribes. This is a
very hard, close grained, and durable wood somewhat similar to lignum vitae or liburnam.

The Myall and Briccolow trees which the best Boomerings are taken, are acacias, the
colour of the wood is dark brown, streaked with yellow. The longest Boomering
see figure first is two feet ten inches long, and weighs nine ounces. The second, two
feet nine inches, and weighs eight ounces. The wood at the centre of these is half inch thick,
at the point of the Boomering the wood is a quarter of an inch thick.

Both sides of every war Boomering is convex, it does not return to the thrower, nor
is this intended as with the small Boomerings of from a foot and a half to two feet
long, these are constructed with one side convex, the other flat.

The war Boomering when thrown, skims along the surface not more then three
or four feet from the earth, and strikes against the ground in its revolution, rebounding
with violence, striking some distance object, and wounding severely with its sharpened
extremeties. There is no method to avoid this destructive missile. " A boomshell thrown
amongst a company of soldiers cannot create a greater consternation than the flight of a
Boomering towards a group of naked blacks, they instantly scatter, and assemble together again
the moment the dreaded instrument is seen to have finished its eccentric course.

It is thrown in every possible