AND PAPUAN RACES. 83 



sembling" and often identical with those of tlie known 

 Papuan lang-uag-es of Torres Strait,* and which I 

 belies e to have been derived from the latter, seems to 

 indicate a degree of long* continued intercourse be- 

 tween the two races : for chang^es in lang-uag-e to so 

 gTeat an extent are not effected in a short space 

 of time any more than the nearly complete fusion of 

 two different races w^hich has evidently taken place 

 at the Prince of Wales Islands. Scarce^ opposible 

 to this supposition is the extreme improbability that 

 the Papuans, who had nothing to gain ffom so 

 comparatively inferior a race as the Australian, 

 should be indebted to the latter for the words com- 

 mon to both found to exist in the Kowrarega and 

 Miriam lano-uag-es. 



Another mode of procedure suggests itself to one 

 endeavouring to trace the proximate origin of the 

 Australians — and that is, to search the records of 

 voyagers and others for any traces of such customs, 

 the use of certain implements, &c., as are supposed 

 to be most characteristic of these people. Yet, 

 taking, for example, the boomerang f and throwing 



* As means of comparisou I used the Darniey and Murray 

 Island vocabulary given in Jukes' Voyage of the Fly, also a 

 MS. one of my own, which furnishes some additional particu- 

 lars ; some words from Massid given by Jukes ; and a few from 

 Mount Ernest procured by myself. 



t Some of the "fowling sticks" of the ancient Egyptians 

 closely resemble the boomerang in form and appear to have been 

 used in a similar manner, but I am not aware that anything 

 approaching it has been seen elsewhere. A specimen which 



G 2 



