METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 223 



persistent than physical characters, is one which 

 has never been proved, and indeed admits of no 

 proof, seeing that the records of language do not 

 extend so far as those of physical characters. 

 But, until the superior tenacity of linguistic over 

 physical peculiarities is shown, and until the 

 abundant evidence which exists, that the language 

 of a people may change without corresponding 

 physical change in that people, is' shown to be 

 valueless, it is plain that the zoological court of 

 appeal is the highest for the ethnologist, and that 

 no evidence can be set against that derived from 

 physical characters. 



What, then, will a new survey of mankind from 

 the Linnean point of view teach us ? 



The great antipodal block of land we call Aus- 

 tralia has, speaking roughly, the form of a vast 

 quadrangle, 2,000 miles on the side, and extends 

 from the hottest tropical, to the middle of the tem- 

 perate, zone. Setting aside the foreign colonists 

 introduced within the last century, it is inhabited 

 by people no less remarkable for the uniformity, 

 than for the singularity, of their physical charac- 

 ters and social state. For the most part of fair 

 stature, erect and well built, except for an un- 

 usual slenderness of the lower limbs, the Aus- 

 tralians have dark, usually chocolate-coloured 

 skins; fine dark wavy hair; dark eyes, overhung by 

 beetle brows; coarse, projecting jaws; broad and 



