748 PRIMA TES 



It is, however, possible to find African and Melanesian skulls quite 

 alike in essential characters. 



The now extinct inhabitants of Tasmania were probably pure, 

 but aberrant, members of the Melanesian group, which had 

 undergone a modification from the original type, not by mixture 

 Math other races, but in consequence of long isolation, during which 

 special characters had been gradually developed. Lying completely 

 out of the track of all civilisation and commerce, even of the most 

 primitive kind, they were little liable to be subject to the influence 

 of any other race ; and there is in fact nothing among their 

 characters which could be accounted for in the way above 

 suggested, as they were intensely, even exaggeratedly, Negroid 

 in the form of nose, projection of mouth, and size of teeth, 

 typically so in character of hair, and aberrant chiefly in the width 

 of the skull in the parietal region. A cross with any of the 

 Polynesian or Malay races sufficiently strong to produce this 

 would, in all probability, have also left some traces on other parts 

 of their organisation. 



On the other hand, in many parts of the Melanesian region 

 there are distinct evidences of large admixture with Negrito, Malay, 

 and Polynesian elements in varying proportions, producing numerous 

 physical modifications. In many of the inhabitants of the great 

 island of New Guinea itself and of the islands lying around it this 

 mixture can be traced. In the people of Micronesia in the north 

 and New Zealand in the south, although the Melanesian element 

 is present, it is completely overlaid by the Polynesian, but there 

 are probably few, if any, of the islands of the Pacific in which 

 it does not form some factor in the composite character of the 

 natives. 



The inhabitants of the continent of Australia have long been 

 a puzzle to ethnologists. Of Negroid complexion, features, and 

 skeletal characters, yet without the characteristic frizzly hair, their 

 position has been one of great difficulty to determine. They have, 

 in fact, been a stumbling-block in the way of every system proposed. 

 The solution, supported by many considerations too lengthy to enter 

 into here, appears to lie in the supposition that they are not a 

 distinct race at all, that is, not a homogeneous group formed by the 

 gradual modification of one of the primitive stocks, but rather a 

 cross between two already-formed branches of these stocks. Accord- 

 ing to this view, Australia Avas originally peopled with frizzly-haired 

 Melanesians, such as those who still do, or did before the European 

 invasion, dwell in the smaller islands which surround the north, 

 east, and southern portions of the continent, but that a strong 

 infusion of some other race, probably a low form of Caucasian 

 Melanochroi, such as that which still inhabits the interior of the 

 southern parts of India, has spread throughout the land from the 



