THE VARIETIES OF THE HUMAN SPECIES. 319 



a more or less pure condition, especially in the interior and more inac- 

 cessible portions of the islands, almost each of which shows special 

 modifications of the type recognizable in details of structure. Taken 

 altogether their chief physical distinction from the African neo-roes 

 lies in the fact that the glabella and supra-orbital ridges are generally 

 well developed in the males, whereas in Africans this region is usually 

 smooth and flat. The nose, also, especially in the northern part of 

 their geographical range, New Guinea, and the neighboring islands, 

 is narrower (often mosorhine) and prominent. The cranium is gener- 

 ally higher and narrower. It is, however, possible to find African 

 and Melanesian skulls quite alike in essential characters. 



The now extinct inhabitants of Tasmania are probably pure but 

 aberrant members of the Melanesian group, which have undergone a 

 modification from the original type, not by mixture with other races, 

 but in consequence of long isolation, during which special characters 

 have gradually develojjed. Lying completely out of the track of all 

 civilization 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 this way, as they are 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 width of 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 organization. 



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 phys- 

 ical modifications. In many of the inhabitants of the great Island of 

 New Guinea itself and of those lying around it this mixture can be 

 traced. In the people of Micronesia in the north, and New Zealand in 

 the south, though 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 modi- 

 fication of one of the primitive stocks, but rather a cross between two 

 already formed branches of these stocks. According to this view, 

 Australia was originally peopled with frizzly-haired Melanesians, such 



