XVIII NOTES ON THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE. 



The aboriginal inhabitants of the Pacific islands are vanishing 

 before the peaceful aggressions of colonization in a manner unexampled 

 even in the LL^tory of our decaying Indian tribes. The swift decline 

 of the Sandwich islanders is well known, but even their fearful rate 

 of decay is exceeded by that of the more southern insular people. 

 The Maoris of New Zealand, were estimated by Sir George Grey in 

 1851 at 120,000 ; the census of 1858 makes their number only 50,000. 

 " Neither census," remarks one peculiarly fitted by a long residence 

 among them to pronounce an opinion, "may be very accurate, but 

 both indicate, what every one in New Zealand knows, that the native 

 races are becoming extinct with a rapidity unprecedented in the 

 annals of nations." In Tasmania the earliest European colonists 

 found in 1803 more than 5 000 natives; they now number less than 

 a score. In Australia the same fatal process is going on. The cen- 

 sus of 1855 made the native population of South Australia to be 

 3,540, and that of 1860 shows them to have decreased to 1,700. In 

 Victoria there were in 1848 nearly 5,000 Australian aboriginals; in 

 I860 there are only 1,768. 



