(p 
bo 
PRESIDENTS ADDRESS. 5 
is the Kowrarega tribe, according to McGillivray, an Australian 
tribe altered by contact with the Papuan tribes of the adjacent 
islands so as to resemble the latter in most of their physical, 
intellectual, and moral characteristics. 
Mr. James Bonwick,* in his work on “The Daily Life and 
Origin of the Taeuipaine published in 1870, devotes a long 
chapter to their origin. So far as I am able to gather his views, 
they appear to be that at the time when a now sunken continent 
connected Tasmania with New Zealand on the east and with Victoria 
on the west, the Tasmanians migrated therefrom and ranged round 
the coasts of the continent as the highway between what are now 
distinct lands. 
He considers that the Australians came from the same centre 
as the Tasmanians, namely, the ‘sunken continent,” and there- 
fore, in their emigrations, established themselves directly upon the 
south-western part of Australia, and possibly after the separation 
of Tasmania from it. 
The Tasmanians were thus isolated for several or many thou- 
sand years from the world’s progress, and Mr. Bonwick feels 
“wonder that the Tasmanians retained the speech and form of 
man and the strength of human thought, the power of human 
love.” 
Professor Giglioli,t in the conclusion to his work on the Tas- 
manians (1874), regards them as being Australians with the hair 
of Papuans, retaining, but in a primitive form, the habits and 
eustoms of the former, or, to speak more correctly, as being the 
descendants of an earlier black race with woolly hair-who -were 
settled in the continent of New Holland. The Tasmanians were 
the last remainder of that race, having been preserved through 
the isolation of their country. 
He says, in conclusion, that the Tasmanians were members of the 
great Papuan family, and owed their inferiority to the complete 
state of isolation in which they had existed since a very remote 
epoch. 
The Rev. William Ridley? appears to have held the view, 
although he states it (1875) with some hesitation, that the 
Australians passed from New Guinea, from island to island, to 
Cape York. Having found their way onwards to the south and 
west, the necessities and jealousies of the numerous families that 
followed them forebade their return. 
Mr. H. Ling Roth,§ in his most excellent work on the Abori- 
gines of Tasmania, discusses the views of M. Topinard, Professor 
Huxley, Professor Friedrich Miiller, MM. de Quatrefages and 
Haura, Dr. Garson, Mr. Barnard Davis, and other authorities, 
as to the origin of the Tasmanians. He says that it is quite 
*IV, pp. 264, 265, 269. + Xxul, p. 147. } xuvI, p. 119. § XLVII 
