84 TRANSACTIONS OF THE [JaN. 30 



ers, but what sliall we say to these more recent aud most eminent 

 authorities, if it shall turn out that our ideal boomerang not 

 only has both sides flat, and no round side at all, but that each 

 flat side is wholly within one plane, and each parallel to the 

 other? We thus exclude all possibility of a screw-shape 

 warp or twist. 



The fact is, the boomerang takes its paradoxical path, not 

 because but in spite of a screAv-shape twist, the existance of 

 which may be easily accounted for. Every farmer's boy knows 

 that a round limb will split in half ; i. e., through the heart 

 easier than any other way ; and that the split will follow the 

 grain. Now the great difficulty would be not to get a stick that 

 would split twisting, but one that would not. Indeed, nature 

 is so gracefully easy in her ways that it would be next to im- 

 possible to find the limb of a tree so precise in growth that its 

 split side would be all in one plane. Every skilled mechanic 

 knows that it takes tools aud machines of the utmost precision, 

 results of the highest skill in the art, to bring any material sur- 

 face into a perfect plane. How then could the Australian 

 savage, from almost the lowest race of mankind, avoid a warp 

 in his split boomerang ? 



You have a warped board. Wet it uj)on the concave side and 

 apply heat to the convex side and you straighten it. Could it 

 be that the wetting and heating which Prof. Lumholtz observes 

 was not to warp, but to lessen or correct a natural defect in the 

 siDlit boomerang? 



Prof. Joseph Lovering, of Harvard University, read a pajier 

 before the American Academy of Arts and Science in 1859. He 

 makes some very acute observations concerning the inclination 

 of the throw and its consequences. His calculations were based 

 U150U an element of "back pressure," resulting from the 

 " throw," to solve the problem. 



One final instance of the black man's remarkable ingenuity 

 finding an answer to the black man's puzzle, occurs in a recent 

 number of Scribneys Jllar/azine, and is as follows : 



"The secret of its peculiar flight is to be found, not so much in 

 its general form, as in its surface. This, on examination, is 

 found to be slightly waving and broken up by various angles. 

 These angles balance and counter-balance each other ; some by 

 causing differences in the pressure of air on certain parts give 

 steadiness of flight and firmness ; others give buoyancy, and 

 each has general!}^ to be determined practically by experimental 

 throwing — when these dents or angles are properly arranged, 

 the boomerang goes through the air somewhat as a screw pvo- 

 peller goes through the water," etc. 



