acres, present an appearance somewhat similar to that of a deserted goldfield, and convey a faithful idea of the great determination displayed by the aboriginals. William Buckley, described a hard black stone he called Kar-keen which was shaped into stone heads. In the 1880s prominent Wurundjeri leader and custodian of the quarry, William Barak (who probably witnessed the final operations at the quarry) described the traditional ownership and access conventions to ethnographer, Alfred Howitt. Organised excursions were popular in the early 1900s, as when the District Teachers Association organised an excursion in 1906 and the day was "proclaimed a public holiday in the Shire of Lancefield (sic), so that an opportunity will be afforded to all to be present." In the 1940s, Fred McCarthy identified a south-east Australia route associated with Mount William among his seven trunk-trade routes. In the 1960s and 1970s, Mt William drew the attention of anthropologists and archaeologists (notably including Donald Thomson and Isabel McBryde). McBryde's study of trade systems in the 1970s included investigation of the distribution of axes from Mount William and other quarries in Victoria and New South Wales drawing on ethno-historical sources, linguistic and archaeological evidence and petrological studies (using thin section analysis for axes from archaeological sites and stone sources), to reveal distribution trends and social value. McBryde showed Aboriginal exchange networks for Mount William stone extended several hundred kilometres. with distribution determined by the social and political relations between the Kulin and neighbouring groups: sparsely distributed or absent in south-eastern Victoria but more widely distributed in Western Victoria. Management and conservation Mount William had long been recognised as a special Aboriginal place when the first attempt was made to provide some formal protection in 1910. The Director of the Museum of Victoria, Baldwin Spencer, sought to establish a committee in association with the Historical Society of Victoria to purchase a portion of the area to form a reserve. However the landowner declined to sell. In 1917 Allan F. Cameron, Member for Dalhousie in the Victorian Parliament considered that: Something like twenty-five acres of land could be procured at a reasonable price, and fenced in, to be held for all time as the great historic landmark of Australia, furnishing the only indication or proof that we have that this country was inhabited for hundreds of years before the white man came here, In 1918 Cameron sought an appropriation to purchase the