A Half-cade Tasmanian. 5 



and that our scientific knowledge of this hijrhly interestinjr, but 

 little known race, cannot, in view of modern methods, be re- 

 garded as very accurate. 



Bouwick, in his "The Lost TasmaniMi Race'" (6) thus de- 

 scribes, from personal experience, the physical characteristics 

 of the race : — 



The native Tasuianians " were dark in skin, brilliant in eye, 

 with massive jaw, immense teeth, woolly hair, curly beard, 

 bridgeless nose, expanded no>tril, scarred body, shapely feet, 

 small hand .... Except in colour, they were unlike their 

 neighbours of New Holland (Australia). In hair, in nose, in 



limb, they differed The lowest down the depths uf 



barbju'ism, they were neither stupid nor miserable . . . , 

 but had sense and feeling." 



Bonwick, in his larger work on the " Daily Life and Origin of 

 the Tar-manians " (5) ^ives some anthropometrical measurements 

 of the race, and aiso goes, at much gieater length, into the 

 physical characteristics of the latter, of which the following is a 

 brief summary : — 



Skin, dark brown, or nearly black, but so disguised with pig- 

 ments as to make it diflScult to state exactly what colo-ur. 



Hair hangs in cork>-crew appendages aibout the men's faces, is 

 black, and has a crisp, woolly look. The diameters of the hair 

 ellipse are given as 25 is to 15, to which point reference will 

 again be made. 



The eyes have the iris always dark coloured, whilst the white 

 of the eye is not so clear as in Europeans. 



Mouth, great width; lips, though full, had not the negro 

 dimensions. 



Jaws, strongly *et ; chin, inferior to thart: of civilised races, and 

 in the women, particularly, very small and retreating. 



Nostrils, exceedingh^ wide and full, but the great peculiarity, 

 though not ab>:olutely confined to this people, lay in the depres- 

 sion at the commencement of the organ, giving the feature much 

 of a pyramidal character. 



Teeth, large and powerful, so much so as to constitute a 

 decided peculiarity. On the question of the teeth, Bonwick ap- 

 parently enlisted the services of a. dentist, for he quotes Pardoe, 

 a Melbourne representative of that profession, at> follows: — • 



