131 
cal inform with a variety of the Australian instrument) taken 
from the antique, one of which appeared to have been in- 
tended to represent the Herculean weapon. A further con- 
firmation was drawn from the fact, that instruments, formed 
on the model of these, were found to exhibit the peculiar 
flight of the boomerang. So also of the club or hammer of 
Thor, the Hercules of Scandinavian mythology, stated in 
the Edda to have possessed similar properties ; instruments 
of a +, and hammer shape, being also found to exhibit all 
the peculiarities of the Australian weapon. Hence, an 
illustration of the crosses on Pagan British coins, and of 
the tradition of cruciform missiles still preserved in Irish 
romances. 
The connexion between the curved club and the boome- 
rang being thus established, it was suggested, that some 
relationship might be looked for between the Germanic 
nations, who still call their club keile and kiele, a name 
properly descriptive of a crooked weapon, and the Austra- 
lian tribes who call the cognate instrument féliee. 
From the remarkable fact, that the-names of the straight 
spear in several of the languages of Europe are either iden- 
tical, or radically connected, with these characteristic names 
of the crooked missile, it was argued that the boomerang is 
a more ancient weapon than the spear. 
DONATIONS. 
Astronomical Observations made at the Observatory of 
Cambridge. By the Rev. James Challis, M. A. Vol. IX., 
for the year 1836. Presented by the Author. 
Address of His Royal Highness the Duke of Sussex, 
K. G., §c. $c. §c., the President, read at the Anniversary 
Meeting of the Royal Society on Thursday, November 30th, 
1837. Presented by the Society. 
Guilielmi Gilberti, de Magnete, Magneticisque Corpori- 
bus, et de Magno Magnete Tellure ; Physiologia nova, plu- 
