22 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY iv 



has never been proved, and indeed admits of no 

 proof, seeing that the records of language do not 

 extend so far as those of physical characters. 

 But, until the superior tenacity of linguistic over 

 physical peculiarities is shown, and until the 

 abundant evidence which exists, that the language 

 of a people may change without corresponding 

 physical change in that people, is shown to be 

 valueless, it is plain that the zoological court of 

 appeal is the highest for the ethnologist, and that 

 no evidence can be set against that derived from 

 physical characters. 



What, then, will a new survey of mankind from 

 the Linnean point of view teach us ? 



The great antipodal block of land we call 

 Australia has, speaking roughly, the form of a 

 vast quadrangle, 2,000 miles on the side, and 

 extends from the hottest tropical, to the middle of 

 the temperate, zone. Setting aside the foreign 

 colonists introduced within the last century, it is 

 inhabited by people no less remarkable for the 

 uniformity, than for the singularity, of their 

 physical characters-Cand social state;' For the most 

 part of fair stature, erect and well built, except for 

 an unusual slenderness of the lower limbs, the 

 AUSTRALIANS have dark, usually chocolate- 

 coloured skins ; fine dark wavy hair ; dark eyes, 

 overhung by beetle brows ; coarse, projecting jaws ; 

 broad and dilated, but not especially flattened, 



