LIFE OF FLOWER 155 



the great ocean tract bounded on the east and west 

 respectively by the continents of America and Asia. 

 The subject was treated very largely upon the basis of 

 the collection of skulls and skeletons in the Museum of 

 the Royal College of Surgeons ; yet the lecturer was 

 careful to point out that even this extensive series was 

 wholly insufficient for the purpose of forming a classifi- 

 cation of mankind founded on physical structure. 



"It can only afford certain indications, valuable as 

 far as they go, from which a provisional, or approxima- 

 tive system may be built up. Very many, indeed the 

 majority of the islands, are totally unrepresented in it ; 

 others are illustrated by only one or two individuals." 

 " Were the collection anything like representative," it is 

 added later, " it would probably be found possible to 

 distinguish the natives of each island, or, at all events, 

 of each group of islands, by cranial characters alone." 



Special attention was in this course directed to the 

 Australians on the one hand, and to the frizzly-haired 

 Melanesians, or Oceanic Negroes (as distinct from the 

 straight-haired Polynesians) on the other. That the 

 Melanesians were the primitive denizens of the greater 

 part of Oceania, and that the original area they once 

 inhabited has been much circumscribed by Polynesian 

 invasion, the lecturer was fully convinced ; and the 

 great difficulty of distinguishing in some instances to 

 what extent this invasion has led, in certain cases, to 

 a mixture of the two stocks, was earnestly insisted 

 upon. At the conclusion of his discourse Flower 

 commented very strongly on the tfrgent need of making 

 anthropological collections in these islands forthwith ; 

 and, although perhaps his prophecy of impending ex- 



