538 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



development, it has branched off in various directions, in accordance 

 with varying environment; and the tracing of lines of connection be- 

 tween different forms of culture, as is the case with the physical varia- 

 tions, is a matter of intricate complexity. Migrations with the at- 

 tendant climatic changes, change of food, and, in fact, of general en- 

 vironment, to say nothing of the crossing of different stocks, transmis- 

 sion of ideas from one people to another, and other factors, all tend to 

 increase the tangle. 



Although in certain instances savage tribes or races show obvious 

 signs of having degenerated to some extent from conditions of a higher 

 culturedom, this can not be regarded as the general rule, and we must 

 always bear in mind the seemingly paradoxical truth that degradation 

 in the culture of the lower races is often, if not usually, the direct re- 

 sult of contact with peoples in a far higher state of civilization. 



There can, I think, be little doubt that Colonel Lane Fox was well 

 justified in urging the view that most savage races are in large measure 

 strictly primitive, survivals from early conditions, the development of 

 their ideas having from various causes remained practically stationary 

 during a very considerable period of time. In the lower, though not 

 degenerate, races signs of this are not wanting, and while few, possibly 

 none, can be said to be absolutely in a condition of arrested develop- 

 ment, their normal progress is at a slow, in most cases at a very slow, 

 rate. 



Perhaps the best example of a truly primitive race existing in re- 

 cent times, of which we have any knowledge, was afforded by the native 

 inhabitants of Tasmania. This race was still existing fifty years ago, 

 and a few pure-blooded survivors remained as late as about the year 

 1870, when the race became extinct, the benign civilizing influence of 

 enlightened Europeans having wiped this extremely interesting people 

 off the face of the earth. The Australians, whom Colonel Lane Fox 

 referred to as being ' the lowest amongst the existing races of the 

 world of whom we have any accurate knowledge/ are very far in ad- 

 vance of the Tasmanians, whose lowly state of culture conformed thor- 

 oughly with the characteristics of a truly primitive race, a survival not 

 only from the stone age in general, but from almost the earliest begin- 

 nings of the stone age. The difference between the culture of the Tas- 

 manians and that of the Australians was far greater than that which 

 exists between man of the ' river drift ' period and his Neolithic suc- 

 cessors. The objects of every-day use were but slight modifications of 

 forms suggested by nature, involving the exercise of merely the sim- 

 plest mental processes. The stone implements were of the rudest 

 manufacture, far inferior in workmanship to those made by Paleolithic 

 man; they were never ground or polished, never even fitted with han- 

 dles, but were merely grasped in the hand. The varieties of imple- 



