22 Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria. 



ments, weapons, or the methods employed for catching- 

 game. I may point to the comparatively rude spears in 

 some tribes, as contrasted with the highly-finished chalcedony 

 spear points from North-western Australia. 



I may here note in this connection, that materials for an 

 exhaustive work on Australian stone implements, are being 

 collected by Mr. E,. Etheridge, jun., of Sydney. 



In all the enquiries to which I have referred, the members 

 of this section can aid either personally, where it is still 

 possible to make enquiries from the aborigines, or by 

 interesting persons living in other parts of Australia, where 

 the aborigines are still numerous. Much most v^aluable 

 information has been lost for ever, through the extinction of 

 native tribes. The aborigines in all parts of Australia where 

 settlement is in progress, are more or less rapidly dying out, 

 and even where this is least apparent, the contact of the 

 white man destroys the primitive structure of their society, 

 and modifies their beliefs. Indeed, in all parts of Australia 

 the native race is doomed to destruction sooner or later; 

 contact with the white race is fatal ; the aborigines lose the 

 original savage virtue, and acquire instead our vices which 

 destroy them. 



It behoves us, therefore, as representing Anthropological 

 science in Australia, to set earnestly to work to record all 

 that can yet be learned as to the customs and beliefs, the 

 arts of peace and war, of probably the most primitive race 

 now existinof of mankind. 



