744 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION PF. 
coast tribes, and be thence transported inland to such distances 
as the interchange of women as wives by those coast tribes might 
extend. 
As I have pointed out, three of the twelve words identified by 
Mr. Mathew as Malayan are found, on reference to Dr. Codring- 
ton’s work on the Melanesian languages, to be also Melanesian. 
Dr. Codrington shows conclusively that the elements which are 
common to them and the Malay have not been derived from the 
latter, but are common to all the ocean languages, from the 
Malagassy i in the west to the Hawaiian in the east and the Maori 
in the south. He says, further, that this indicates an original 
oceanic stock language, from which the Polynesian, Melanesian, 
and Malay tongues have derived their common elements, which is 
now extinct, and of which the Malay is one of the younger 
descendants.* The presence of certain common words in the ocean 
languages testifies that the ancient speakers made canoes, built 
houses, cultivated gardens before the time when their posterity 
branched off in their way to Madagascar and Fiji. t 
Such being the case, the primitive home of those speakers of the 
“ocean language” may be supposed to have been somewhere in 
the Indo- Malay an or Austro-Malayan regions, or, perhaps, to 
speak more correctly, in the ancient extensions of the Asiatic and 
Austral continents which they represent. 
At any rate, the dispersal of the primitive speakers of the ocean 
stock-language must have been long after the migration of the 
Australians, and still longer after that of the Tcenanmee) 
It seems, however, not a little remarkable that the migrations 
of the offshoot, which is now represented by the Melanesians, 
should have extended from New Guinea, if not from a point 
further west, around, but at a distance from, and thus not touching 
Australia. 
Compared with the sea distances, which must have been passed 
over (since the common stock- language proves that they were 
acquainted with canoes) before reaching Fiji, the stretches of sea 
between Timor and Australia, and New Guinea and Australia, 
must have been comparatively insignificant. 
At any rate, it would seem that Torres Strait separated the 
Papuans from the Australians almost as effectually as Bass Strait 
separated the latter from the Tasmanians. 
The Melanesians occupy a vast insular extent, touching New 
Guinea at the one end and Fiji at the other end, probably repre- 
sent the older race on which the Papuans have intruded. 
It seems not unreasonable to consider these facts as indicating 
migrations of three branches of mankind in successive stages of 
ethnical development and culture. 
* 1x, p. 11, 26, 31, passim. } ax; p. 78. 
