Tdsmanian Cvdnia. 131 



may bo illiistrntetl hy ;i (luotation from Tlionison (24), who savs, 

 when s|ieitkiiiL;' of llu- causes nf variation : "" In ret^ard to the causes 

 of variation it is too socm to sjieak, excejit in tentative whispers. 

 What Darwin said must still he said, ' Our ignorance of the laws of 

 variation is profound. Not in one case out of a hundred can we 

 pretend to assifjn any reason why this or that part has varied.' "' 



The other line of thoujrht may be illustrated by a quotation from 

 Cossar Ewart (25), than whom there is no greater living authority on 

 this particular subject. He says: — "Domestic animals reproduce 

 themselves with great uniformity if kept apart ; but the moment one 

 mixed up the two different races, strains, or breeds, one did something 

 that was difficult to put in words, the result was what has I)een best 

 described as an ' eiiidemic ' of variations." 



The main question in disjiute as to the origin of the Australian 

 aboriginal is as to whether he is, or is not, an autochthonous race, 

 that is, a pure-bred race, or the result of a cross, and in the Melbourne 

 School of Anthropologv, almost all the several lines of research laid 

 down l)y Professor Berry have been evolved with the solution of this 

 problem in view. 



Frofu what Cossar Ewart has said, it is clear that, if the Tasmanian 

 be a pure-bred and homogeneous race, the range of variation should 

 be small, whilst conversely if the Australian be an im]nire or mixed 

 race the range of variation should be high. With the Australian I 

 am not at present concerned, but the subject will shortly be dealt with 

 l)y Professor Berry and Dr. Robertson. 



Concerning the mode of situdying the range of variation, provided 

 there be some standard object of comparison, it is an easy matter to 

 express the range of the variation of the subject under consideration 

 in terms of percentage with the standard object, as is now actually 

 being done by my fellow investigators in this school. 



The results ax-e not, as yet, quite ready for publication, but the 

 work comprises a comparative study of the range of variation of 

 ■■ form analysis," and other cranial and facial measurements of sup- 

 ]iosed i)ure races like the Tasmanian and Andamanese, of known im- 

 pure races like the modern Italian, and of the doubtful race under 

 investigation, the Australian. 



In my study of the craniotrigonometriual characters of the Tas- 

 manian skull, it is obvious that as there are no other figures available 

 to me, I cannot employ this particular method of studying the per- 

 centage range of variation, but have had to fall back on an ordinary 

 arithmetical figure for displaying the mean range of variation. I am 

 well aware that it is more accurate to employ the modern biometric 

 methods, but in this particular case the final results of the one method 

 are not materiallv different from those of the other. 



