PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION F. 577 



2.--S0ME NOTES ON SCIENTIFIC TRA\'EL AMONGST THE 

 BLACK POPULATION OF TROPICAL AUSTRALIA IN 



1904, 1905, 1906. 



By ProfesMr HERMANN KLAATSCH, M.D. 



[With Seventeen Plates and Map.] 



In coming to AustraUa n was my intention to attack the difficult 

 problem of the origin of the Australian blacks, and of their importance 

 in relation to the whole development of mankind. Many years pre- 

 viously I had begun my studies by examining skeletons and skulls, 

 and had noted the close similarity existing between the skulls of Aus- 

 tralian aboriginals and of those of primitive man in Kurope that was 

 first pointed out by Professor Huxley. 



Having arrived in Australia at the end of March, 1904, I proceeded 

 direct to Brisbane, where ready assistance was offered by Dr. W. E. 

 Roth, then Chief Northern Protector of the Queensland Aboriginals. 

 I accepted his invitation to investigate carefully his excellent collec- 

 tion of Queensland crania now preserved in the Australian Museum, 

 Sydney, where I finished the descriptive paper in 1905. 



My paper, entitled " Morphological Studies of the Skulls of North 

 Queensland Aboriginals," is now in course of being printed and pub- 

 lished by the New South Wales Government. In this some of the 

 general ideas will be comnmnicated regarding my theories of the im- 

 portance of the Australian race in comparison with Anthropoids, the 

 fossil man of the European Stone Age, and the now existing races of 

 mankind. (1) 



I agree with Dr. llowitt's opinion that only a land connection could 

 explain the presence of the aboriginals in Australia, and I am inclined 

 to accept the view of a submerged continent, from which, in one direc- 

 tion, have been distributed the Asiatic people, and in another the Aus- 

 tralian blacks. 



In the month of July, 1904, I began my investigations on the 

 anthropology of the living body of the aboriginals of North Australia, 

 in which direction very little had been previously done. My first 

 experiences with the natives in a primitive stage was in the Gulf of 

 Carpentaria. The Queensland Government placed the sailing-ship 

 Melbidir at my disposal for a period of six weeks, which gave me the 

 opportunity of visiting some of the rivers of the gulf coast of the Cape 



(I) My publications on this question before I came to Australia are very little 

 known to English authors, from their not having been translated into that 

 language. In the paper indicated my other publications are mentioned, which are 

 to be found in the " Zeitschrift fiir Ethnologic, Berlin," and in the Reports of the 

 German Anthropological Society. A more general review is given in my paper 

 on the Origin and Development of Mankind, in the popular work, " Weltall und 

 Menschheit," II., 1902, Berlin. 



o2 



