80 TRANSACTIONS OF THE [JAN. 30 
exactly as by hitting the oblique bars of a wind-mill, it forces. 
it togo round. The ingenuity of this ancient weapon, which is. 
worthy of the highest scientific calculation, is very extraordinary 
as coming from the almost lowest race of mankind.” 
Extraordinary is too mild a term. When a black savage from 
‘almost the lowest race of mankind” can, by the deliberate exercise 
of his inventive ingenuity, succeed, if not in turning our very 
philosophy upside down, at least in so effectually confounding a 
popular educator of the highest race of mankind, that he sub- 
verts the very laws of fluid resistances, requiring that the 
boomerang should be thrown bulged side down in order that 
the “air impinging thereon’’ might lift it, etc., when, as a 
matter of fact the boomering is never thrown bulged side down, 
and even if it should be, the effect would be exactly the opposite 
from that stated. 
Any one who has ever been pulled nearly off his feet by the 
wind getting on the wrong side of bis umbrella, knows the. truth 
of that statement without once thinking of theimmortal Newton, 
or his prop. 34. 
I take this opportunity tosay: Ido not believe there was a 
particle of ingenuity exercised in the creation of the first return- 
ing boomerang. I believe, as suggested by Pitt Rivers, F.R.S., 
in the Anthropological Journal, that it may be very easily explained. 
But, not to commit the very error I am condemning in the 
encyclopzdist, and set up imaginary causes as dogmatic assump- 
tion of fact, I will, in attempting to tell the story of its origin, 
admit that it is a flight of fancy—and so I begin with the good 
old and appropriate phrase : 
Once upon a time many years ago there lived in the bush of 
Australia, a wild and woolly black man. One particularly hungry 
day, while roaming his native haunts in search of food, he 
came suddenly upon a wild animal, large, powerful and fleet of 
foot. He grabbed the nearest missile at hand, and hurling it 
with all his eager might, broke the leg of a bouncing kangaroo, 
With this advantage gained, the fierce and hungry savage 
soon throttled the disabled game and appeased his appetite. 
But he failed not to note that the successful weapon which 
chance had thrown in his way, was a heavy, crooked stick. He 
noted well its elbow-like bend, its whirling motion and wide 
range, and he straightway proceeded to cultivate his lucky 
throwing club. 
Indeed, so easy and natural a step was this in the inception of 
the art of maiming game, that the braves of all lands seem to 
have known the wonderful virtues of a curved club, and some 
gods as well, if we may believe what Mr. Ferguson and philo- 
