20 Proceedings of the Royal Socle/ tj of Victoria. 



but I must maintain that the genei-al features have been 

 sketclied out in broad and sufficiently accurate lines, which 

 will not be materially altered by further investigations. 

 Details will be filled in and variations from the typical 

 structure will he observed and recorded. It may be that 

 some even move archaic form of aboriginal society will be 

 discovered in tribes isolated in the desert parts of the western 

 half of the continent. But I am satisfied it will be found 

 that all information will fall into an orderly sequence of 

 development from an undivided commune, with maternal 

 descent, to a community in which individual marriage is 

 completely established, together with a change of descent to 

 the male life. 



Such being the case, I may observe further, that in the 

 varied series of social communities existing in Australian 

 tribes, we may safely mark the gradual development of early 

 society, which through savagery had led up, through the 

 status of barbarism, to the present position of civilized man. 



The work which still remains to be done in Australian 

 Anthropology is immense, and includes investigations as to 

 the racial affinities of our aborigines, including peculiarities 

 or divergences of physical structure. Also whether, excluding 

 the influence of other races on the northern coasts, there are 

 or are not traces of the fusion in Australian tribes of two or 

 more primitive races. It has long seemed to me possible 

 that the aborigines of Tasmania may have represented the 

 autochthonous inhabitants of the Australian continent, who 

 had thus escaped by isolation from annihilation or absorption 

 — annihilation by being killed by a superior and better armed 

 people, and absorption of women as war captives. I am 

 aware that a similar suggestion has been made by one of 

 our most enlightened and efficient investigators, the Rev. W. 

 Mathews. 



Questions also as to the origin of the Australian aborigines 

 also suggest the possibility of the occasional arrival in the 

 northern, north-western, or north-eastern coasts of small 

 numbers of persons of other races by stress of weather. The 

 occurrence of paintings of a remarkable character in caves 

 in Western Australia have been long a subject of discussion, 

 but it seems now that the true explanation of their origin 

 may be that given by Mr. Mathews at the late meeting of 

 the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science, 

 and that the Australian aborigines are not to be held as 

 being their authors. 



