114 REPORT—1846. 
On a Machine for registering the Velocity of Railway Trains. 
By M. Ricarpo. 
The object of it is to furnish the railway companies with a record of the work done 
by each train, and the measure in which it has been done. By this means they would 
be often enabled, in case of any accident, to assign correctly the nature and cause of 
the accident; and so prevent its recurrence. He also showed the work of a machine 
for registering the resistance of trains. 
On the Comparative Value of the different kinds of Gas Meters now in use. 
By J. Suarp. 
ETHNOLOGY. 
Notice on the Aborigines of Newfoundland. By J. Berts Juxrs, M.A., F.G.S. 
In this paper the author stated that, from all the information he procured in New- 
foundland in the years 1839 and 1840, he believed the aborigines of that country to 
be a branch of the Red Indians of North America, and that they had no affinity with 
the Esquimaux; that they were acquainted with the Esquimaux, and despised them 
for their dirty habits; that they were on friendly terms with the mountaineers of 
Labrador, whom they called Shaunamunc; and that about twenty years ago the last 
remnant of the Beeothics, or Aborigines of Newfoundland, were probably received by 
the mountaineers and incorporated into their tribes. 
Notes on the three Races of Men inhabiting the Islands of the Indian and Pacific 
Oceans. By J. Beers Juxes, M.A., F.G.S. 
In this paper the author stated his belief, derived from personal observation, that 
in the islands included between the eastern coast of Africa and the western coast of 
America, there were at least three races of men:—1st. ‘Lhe Malayo-Polynesian race, 
2nd. The Papuan race. 3rd, The Australian race. 
He believed that these three races would be found to differ one from the other, 
physically, morally and intellectually, He then detailed some of these differences, 
and showed that whichever class of characters were taken, the differences between 
the races became equally strongly marked. As a good external physical mark, the 
hair might be taken; when the first race might be called the straight-haired; the 
second, the frizzle-haired; and the third, the curly-haired. The author entered some- 
what at length into a comparison of the manners and customs of the two latter races, 
as they had hitherto often been confounded together, and showed that there was as 
strongly marked a distinction, whether the structure and aspect of the body, the dis- 
position or powers of the mind, or the habits and customs, arts, implements, and weapons 
of the people were taken as the standard of comparison, hetween the second race and 
the third as between the second and the first. He stated that the third race, or 
Australian, was strictly confined to the continent of Australia, and the islands im- 
mediately adjacent to its shores. He described the second, or Papua race, as stretching 
from Mangeray or Flores, through Timor, New Guinea, and the adjacent islands, 
the Louisiade, the Solomon Archipelago, the New Hebrides, and New Caledonia, to 
the Fejee Islands. Some outlying tribes of this race might be found, perhaps, in 
islands to the west of Flores, and the inhabitants of the Andamans apparently be- 
longed to them ; and even some of the hill tribes of the interior of India seemed to re- 
semblethem. On the south-eastagain they seemed to have reached Van Diemen’s Land, 
and mingled there with the Australian race. The first race, or the Malayo-Polynesian, 
‘occupied all the other islands, namely, Madagascar, Sumatra, Java, Borneo, Celebes, 
the Philippines, Carolines, Friendly Islands, New Zealand, and all the other islands 
to the eastward over the whole Pacific Ocean. The principal object of the paper 
