BY FRI'lZ NOETLING, M.A., PH.D. 109 



for the aborigines of Tasmania as those of Australia, the 

 only real diliei'ence is a warmer, more congenial climate 

 in Australia than in Tasmania. "Whether tlie comparative 

 scarcity of water in Australia is of any real importance 

 may be somewhat doubtful, because it is very probable 

 that the natives carefully avoided all those tracts where 

 water is scarce. 



Though the Tasmanian climate was more severe than 

 the Australian, it is, therefore, not very probable that the 

 struggle for existence was more arduous in Tasmania than 

 in Australia, and, though an occasional drought may have 

 affected the Australians, the same struggle was not harder 

 in Australia than in Tasmania. 



The conditions of life of the Australian aborigines and 

 those of Tasmania were, therefore, pretty much the same, 

 except for the difference in the climate. Is it possible, or 

 even probable, that this difference of climate accounts for 

 the difference in the evolution of the two branches? I 

 fairly doubt it, and it is generally assumed that those races 

 living in a cooler climate are superior to those living in a 

 warmer one. If Dr- Basedow's theory were correct, this 

 general experience would be erroneous, as f:ir as Australia 

 ;:nd Tasmania are concerned. 



I, therefore, think that, notwithstanding their simil- 

 arity of the skull, the Tasmanian r.borigines are different 

 from the Australian aborigines. Both may be derived 

 from the same stock or root, but it is more than probable 

 that the Tasmanians represent the older, the Australians 

 the younger branch. 



Wc know now for certain that the separation of Aus- 

 trn.lia and Tasmania took place after the disappearance of 

 the glaciers in Tasmania, and after the extinction of the 

 gignntic marsupialia, which, as the palaeontological evidence 

 of the Mowbrav swamp pi'oves, must have lived up to, what 

 •we would call in Europe, historical times. The occupation 

 of the present island by {he aborigines has, therefore, taken 

 place in quite recent times, and I estimate the period that 

 has since lapsed at not more than 7,000 years. 



Even admitting, for the sake of argument, that this 

 period were too short, is the time since the separation long 

 enoufrh to produce such serious changes in the cranium of 

 the aborigines as Dr. Basedow assumes? I fairly doubt it; 

 but, what is more, why should the mere fact of separation 



