436 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION F. 



At the present time two scientific expeditions, chiefly with 

 ethnological objects in view, and under British and Swedish direc- 

 tion respectively, are exploring the little known parts of north- 

 western Australia. Their observations will no doubt do much to 

 supplement the invaluable information obtained by the Horn 

 Expedition, and the subsequent labours of Professor Spencer and 

 Mr. Gillen, in those remote regions where the native races still live 

 in their primitive state, as yet comparatively untouched by the 

 inevitable deterioration which contact with civilisation brings to 

 them. It would be a work worthy of our Federal Government, and 

 redounding to the credit of Australia, to effectively equip a scientific 

 party under Australian auspices for an exhaustive and immediate 

 study of a race so intensely interesting as the Australian race is, 

 both from an ethnological as well as from a general standpoint ; 

 and every year will render the work more difficult, the field for 

 observation more limited, as the materials for it disappear with 

 the certain extinction of the tribes consequent upon the breaking 

 down and demoralisation of their social customs and characteristic 

 features before detrimental influences. 



4.— OX THE NECESSITY FOR A UNIFORM SYSTEM OF SPELLING 

 AUSTRALIAN PROPER NAMES. 

 By REVD. GEORGE BROWN, D.D., Sydney. 



The object of this paper is not so much to advocate the adoption 

 of some means by which the proper pronunciation of Australian 

 place names can be obtained, though that also is very important, 

 but to plead for some uniform and intelligible form of expressing the 

 sounds as we at present understand them. 



At the present time there is no uniformity and no system 

 whatever in the spelling, and letters are used, without any marks 

 of distinction, to express widely different sounds. We in Australia 

 have, in some measure, got accustomed to this absurd and dis- 

 graceful state of affairs, but those who visit us from time to time 

 must often wonder why we allow it to continue. Most of the men 

 who compile vocabularies, or write about the language, beliefs, 

 manners and customs of the people among whom they live, have 

 their own way of spelling, and write the words in characters, which, 

 no doubt, express certain sounds to them, but which would cer- 

 tainly not express the same sounds to a stranger. This is a serious 

 hindrance to any effective study of the relationship of the respective 

 dialects to each other, and of their connection with some original 

 stock. 



The difficulty has been met with in other parts of the world, 

 and |has, to a very considerable extent, been overcome by the 

 adoption of a uniform system by the Royal Geographical Society 

 of Great Britain and the British Admiralty. This system is, prac- 

 tically, the same as the one used by the missionaries in the Pacific 

 groups, by Threlkeld, and others in Australia, and by the United 

 States Board of Geographic names. It is, undoubtedly, the 



