In the literal sense of the word and without making any judgments about meanings, the term "speleograffiti" could be used to encompass all the forms of cave art and engravings by indigenous peoples and prehistoric man. For the purposes of this article, I am relating speleograffiti to the written comments and signatures left by cave explorers or cave visitors since European settlement, subsequent to the possible earlier occupation or use of caves by indigenous peoples.

For many centuries now, caves all over the world have been "decorated" by all sorts of speleograffiti, particularly "visitors book" comments or signatures, with or without accompanying dates or addresses. Inscriptions are sometimes written on cave walls or cave ceilings, but more commonly on the pristine white to creamy-yellow smooth surfaces of speleothems: stalactites, stalagmites or flowstone. Early cave visitors appeared to be using some caves as a "visitors book" to record their visit, or simply attempting to ingratiate "fame" for themselves as proof of their early discovery or visit to the site. An unfortunate adjunct of these early cave visits was the tendency for cave visitors to break off speleothem pieces as souvenirs (or proof) of their visit in addition to leaving their signature inscriptions behind. In Australian caves, most of the early speleograffiti inscriptions have been performed with the carbon black from candles and carbide lights, the soft lead or graphite from pencil, or scratching speleothems and engraving into softer limestones. In a lesser number of instances, some inscriptions have also been written in coloured inks with pen nibs and more modern inscriptions include such mediums as felt pen, ball-point biro or paint.

In the Hastings karst of southern Tasmania, nearly all the speleograffiti has been inscribed with pencil. Three of the Hastings caves have been used as cave visitor destinations since 1917-1918: Newdegate Cave, King George V Cave and Beattie Cave (Clarke, 1999a). All three caves are well adorned with visitors' comments, messages or signatures; many have dates accompanying them, mostly dating back to the time before the caves were "developed" as tourist caves. During the recent rehabilitation programme in Newdegate Cave, I undertook an extensive survey of the speleograffiti sites in all three caves, photographing or annotating some 318 inscriptions with the assistance of two of the Hastings Caves interpretation officers: Roger Griffiths and Peter Price. The major aim of this survey was to check whether any of the dated signature inscriptions could provide a clue to when the caves were discovered, because of the absence of other early documented evidence (Clarke, 1999a).

Most of the dated inscriptions on the paler coloured, smooth faced speleothems are still very clear and legible , but some inscriptions on darker coloured or more "active" speleothems are virtually unreadable and many were not recorded. Some of the less readable inscriptions were made "legible" by studying close-up photographs, or using tracing paper to copy the signatures. Nearly two-thirds of the 318 speleograffiti inscriptions in the three caves at Hastings had accompanying dates with them, and 137 of these dates were in fact three segment (day-month-year) dates and thus quite useful for historical purposes. Despite the lack of factual or published documentation (circa late 1917/ early 1918), the chronology of early cave discoveries at Hastings described in a report by the Tasmanian Government Photographer John Watt Beattie (Beattie, 1918), appears to match the chronological order of date inscriptions in these same three studied caves.

It should be stated from the outset, that the three segment dates are not necessarily a reliable indication of cave discovery. However, it is interesting to note that as shown in Table 1, the earliest three segment date ("22" or possibly "24" Dec 1917) occurs in Newdegate Cave; this accompanies the signature name "M. McDevitt", along with six other names: all pencil-written on a small stalagmite just below the present Spiral Staircase. Newdegate Cave was reported as the first known cave at Hastings (Beattie, 1918), probably discovered in November or December 1917 (Clarke, 1999a). Some 70 signatures were recorded in this cave, including eight with unreadable names. Only 23 of the 70 signatures in Newdegate Cave have legible dates associated with them; sixteen (16) of these were three segment dates. Apart from the seven above mentioned three segment 1917 dates, one was dated "Dec. 27 1918", six are related to dates in January and February, 1935 and two in March 1937, which are the most recent dated signatures, with the same "B. McDevitt" name (see Figure 4). All of the other early single "year" dates (" 1917' and " 1918") are located in the upper entrance "foyer" above the lower Central Hall, which is now accessed by the Spiral Staircase. A seemingly anomalous signature comment located in the far lower reaches of Newdegate Cave beyond the Central Hall on a muddy-walled flowstone bank, contains the inscription: "FOUND IN 1912 BY E.L. CHESTERMAN"; however, recent photographic analysis of this inscription indicates it was written with a modern blue ball-point "biro" type pen (interestingly, in a similar study of speleograffiti in the Jenolan caves by Robert Whyte and coworkers from UNSWSS, they were also lead into the field of forensics, trying to work out what was a forgery, albeit a very old forgery in some instances).

Table 1: Analysis of 318 speleograffiti signatures or comments in three "caves" at Hastings, showing total number of visitor "names" recorded, numbers of "readable" (legible) names, numbers of "dated" signatures including numbers of three segment "dd-mm-yy" dates, "main years" when dated signatures occur and recorded "visitors" for those years, plus the "earliest" and "latest" three segment date for each cave. The summary row includes three 1918 dated visitor names to Newdegate Cave.

CAVE	Names	Readable	Dated	dd-mm-yy	Main years	Visitors	Earliest	Latest
Newdegate Cave	70	62	23	16	1917; 1935	10; 5	22-12-1917	28-03-1937
King George V Cave	151	79	120	84	1918; 1919	61; 24	23-01-1918	27-01-1935
Beattie Cave	97	90	55	37	1918; 1919	22; 24	30-03-1918	27-12-1937
SUMMARY	318	231	198	137	1918; 1919	86;48	24-11-1917	27-12-1937

As shown in Table 1, there are 151 inscriptions as signatures or "visitor book" comments in King George V Cave, however 72 of these were "unreadable" due to either illegible writing or poor preservation, despite being accompanied by legible dates. Slightly over half of the 120 dated signature names in King George V Cave are associated with 1918 dates and another 24 have 1919 dates; most of the "1918" dated visitor names occur in the months of April 1918 (29 names) and May 1918 (24 names). Although the earliest three segment date in King George V Cave is 23-1-1918, there are two other barely legible "year" date signatures, which appear to read as "Ruby Hammond 1916" and "Tas Jones 1917", but due to their lack of clarity and inconsistency with other known historical data (possible forgeries), these dates have been ignored in terms of defining cave discovery date. Further detailed analysis of the dated signatures in King George V Cave shows two distinct gaps in the signature/ comment dates from 1922-1928 and 1930-1933 which probably correspond to the periods when the entrance was securely gated, prior to eventual opening up as a tourist cave in late 1933 by the Esperance Municipality Council (Clarke, 1999a). Although the most recent three segment date for King George V Cave is "27-01-1935" (see Table 1), there is another barely legible signature which could possibly be read as "A.R. Smith 1937", plus a more modern fine-tipped felt pen inscription: "P. Gregory 1965"; both of these have been ignored in the present analysis (shown in Table 1).

In Beattie Cave, the earliest signature with a three segment date reads as "March 30th, 1918" and like King George V Cave the majority of dated signatures relate to visits to the cave in 1918 and 1919 (see Table 1). In similarity with King George V Cave there is a gap in the signature/ comment dates in Beattie Cave from 1922-1933. Interestingly, there are no dated inscriptions for the year "1920" in any of the three caves, which possibly relates to the year when the wooden rail tramway was removed, following the abandonment of the nearby Hastings Timber Mill (Clarke, 1999a).

A study of the surnames in signatures of the cave speleograffiti at Hastings indicates that most of the early inscriptions were made by residents of the nearby settlements of Hastings, Southport or Lune River. Where signatures were inscribed by persons from the further outlying, often larger town centres, such as Dover, Geeveston, Franklin, Huonville, Judbury, Cygnet or Hobart, the names of these towns have often been recorded along with the signature names, sometimes with full address and phone number details! The same names are sometimes repeated with same visitation dates or occur on different dates in the same cave and/or in all the caves, suggesting these people were quite keen to let others know they had been there, essentially using the cave as a "visitors book".

Many of these cave visitors must have considered it to be quite kosha to leave their signature or name mark in the caves, because apart from the full address details, some visitors have left their complete civilian life title, e.g., in Newdegate Cave there are the following signatures: "P.C. Monte Whitbread" (the police constable at Geeveston), "Rev. C.O.L. Cook" and "T. Cross - 16 Cygnet Scour", along with the barely discernible "Sapper McMillan (or McMartyn) St Johns Avenue New Town" and "Wireless Operator Moore", both partially coated in calcite on the Estcourt Stalagmite. In King George V Cave, there are several instances of the same signatories appearing several times, e.g., "F.G. Pitt - KCMG" and similarly in Beattie Cave: where the name "Alan Rowe" is repeated several times for the same date. In Beattie Cave, some visitors have left "visitor book" messages, e.g., "The Earth is the Lords - S. Albon, Franklin, 1918" or more simple undated messages "Gwen Cragg/ Phyllis Briggs - how wonderful". There are several examples of quite complete home address details in Beattie Cave, including the following two: "R. Jackson 35 Liverpool Street Hobart 12-1-1919" and "G.A. Richardson Post Office Judbury Huon 27-12-1937". Most of the signatures in these caves are written in pencil, but there is one instance in King George V Cave where a party of four visitors have "scratched" or engraved their dated signatures into flowstone.

In both Beattie Cave and King George V Cave and to a lesser extent in Newdegate Cave, many of the signatures are written as a list of "party" members often associated with a date of visit. Most of the visiting parties to King George V Cave have signed their party visitor names on the cave decoration walls of one small (4-5m long) narrow side passage where there are 142 signatures on the flowstone and other pale coloured speleothems; (this passage was visited by ACKMA members during the Tasmanian post-conference field trips in 1995). One of the parties listed at this location in King George V Cave, is headed by the name "F.G. Par which occurs several times in this same passage; in this instance he(?) is listed as being at the head of the " 'Lerma' Party 27-2-29" along with seven other clearly written "distinguished" names of the times. The 'Lerma' was a small 41 ton trading barge described as a "Passage Boat", circa 1917-1930 (Norman, 1938), which plied its trade between Hobart and Hastings in the 1920's (Kerr, 1987). 1 The lists of names in these numerous visiting cave party groups are usually written in the same hand writing; party numbers ranging from five to twenty in a single visiting group, though some of the signatures were unreadable, due to being illegible or poorly preserved.

The lack of preservation of speleograffiti items in the caves at Hastings is largely due to deterioration of speleothems or cave walls, such as in Beattie Cave which appears to have "dried out" since the entrance was enlarged up for tourist parties, or the reverse: further deposits of calcite being precipitated on speleothems, in King George V Cave and Newdegate Cave, where for example, the signatures on the Estcourt Stalagmite are now barely discernible. Some inscriptions have also become illegible due to darker (soft) lead pencil written signatures becoming smudged during subsequent cave visits, or as a result of signatures being partially covered by splatters of mud.

The legibility of the pencil written signature names in the caves at Hastings appears to be dependent on a number of factors. Aside from issues relating to preservation of original inscriptions, the actual style of writing or engraving is useful in terms of legibility: varying from the extremely legible flowing "copper-plate" or cursive script style writing or older gothic style printing to the less legible scrawling text or irregularly printed words. The actual style or formatof these older written names, comments and associated date inscriptions can be quite "artistic" and easy to read, perhaps reflecting the style of writing formerly taught in schools or practiced in the workplace. The clarity or legibility of the early pencil written names can also be related to other factors such as pencil sharpness (i.e., fine lines are easier to read) and the degree of "blackness" of pencil lead or graphite. Two other factors affecting clarity or readability of names: firstly the previously mentioned colour of background; signatures or names on lighter coloured walls or speleothems are easier to read. Secondly, the writing surface itself: on a rough or irregular surface, vowels such as "o", "e" or "a" are often distorted and may appear as an "a", "i" or "u" and similarly there are problems with legibility of certain consonants on rough textures.

The speleograffiti in the Hastings Caves is relatively modern compared with examples from other cave areas in Tasmania and elsewhere on the mainland. During the recent ACKMA Conference at Mt. Gambier, a field trip to caves in the Naracoorte region yielded some much earlier dates. For example: in the back end of Blanche Cave two pencil-written inscriptions appear close to each other: "Maggie Hutchins/ Anne Melbourne 1882" and "G Bottomley/ R Bone 4/5/82"; the ceiling of this same chamber in Blanche Cave is adorned with numerous virtually illegible carbon-black signatures. An earlier date occurs in the soft rock Gambier Limestone of Robertsons Cave, where the inscription "G.H. Smith 1864" was engraved into a wall near a site where large limestone bricks had been excavated. During a detailed two year study of signatures and their dates in the caves at Jenolan (and also Wombeyan), Rob Whyte discovered some early (1840/50s) signatures at Jenolan; the bulk of these early signatures are near the cave entrances, but as time went on and more discoveries were made the signatures appear deeper inside (pers. comm., R. Whyte, May 1999). One of the earliest reported records of "speleograffiti" in a Tasmanian cave relates to the "G A Robinson July 24 1834" inscription on canvas by George Augustus Robinson placed at the far end of an un-named cave near Chudleigh in the Mole Creek district: a cave located at the eastern end of a plain south of the Mersey River (Plomley, 1966; Clarke, 1999b).

Acknowledgments

I am particularly grateful to Roger Griffiths and Peter Price for their assistance in locating speleograffiti sites in the three caves at Hastings and their help in reading or interpreting the inscriptions, (including signature copy tracings by Roger) plus the similar interpretation assistance from Keith Vanderstaay, Robyn Claire and Jeff Butt. I would also like to acknowledge the similar more recent assistance given by Brian Clark, Steve Bourne, Liz Reed and other guides at the Naracoorte Caves, plus the time and effort by post graduate student: Matt McDowell in Robertsons Cave. I should also like to thank Rob Whyte for recent email correspondence relating to his detailed two year study of speleograffiti in the Jenolan and Wombeyan cave areas of NSW.

References

Beattie, J.W. 1918. The Caves of Hastings - Fresh Discoveries. Their Exceeding Beauty. Great Hall of Dazzling Splendour. Unpublished (undated) broadsheet in archival collection of Royal Society of Tasmania, University of Tasmania; text of a report to the Royal Society of Tasmania, on 15 April, 1918.

Clarke, A. 1999a The early history of Newdegate Cave and its development for tourism. Paper presented to 13th ACKMA Conference, Mt. Gambier, 24 April 1999.

Clarke, A. 1999b Baldocks Cave: the site locality for the Tasmanian Cave Spider. Paper presented to 13th ACKMA Conference, Mt. Gambier, 24 April 1999.

Kerr, G. 1987 The Tasmanian Trading Ketch. Garry Kerr, Portland, Victoria.

Norman, L. 1938 Pioneer Shipping of Tasmania. Shearwater Press, Sandy Bay, Tasmania.

Plomley, N.J.B. (1966) Friendly Mission: The Tasmanian Journals and Papers of George Augustus Robinson 1829-1834. P. 908