July 6, 1876] 



NATURE 



211 



astronomer on the heliometer, which in his hands acquired 

 so universal a reputation ; to sidereal astronomy, with 

 the memoirs relating to the parallax of 61 Cygni, the 

 measures of the principal members of the Pleiades, 

 to which Dr. Engelmann has added a chart of the 

 group containing stars visible in a telescope of lo'ii 

 cm. aperture, or to " about lo'ii magnitude," the 

 stars not found in Argelander's DurcJwtusterun^ having 

 a distinguishing mark. Several mathematical essays 

 follow. 



MiRA Ceti. — Reference is often made in treatises on 

 astronomy to the unusual degree of brilliancy attained 

 by this variable star at the maximum of 1779. From the 

 observations of Bode, Herschel, and Wargentin, we have 

 the following particulars of the augmentation and diminu- 

 tion of brightness in that year. 



Aug. 22.— Invisible in an ordinary 2-feet telescope. 



Sept. 8. — Seen with the same instrument but very faint. 



Sept. 18. — Immediately visible to the naked eye ac- 

 cording to Herschel. Bode estimated it 4m. 



Oct. 5 and 6. — Already much brighter than Menkar 

 (a Ceti). 



Oct. 15-19. — Equal to a Arietis on iSth, and still 

 brighter on the 19th ; the light reddish. 



Oct. 30. — According to Wargentin, it was equal to 

 Aldebaran and of the same colour, or even of the redness 

 of Mars which was observable the same night. In a 10- 

 feet achromatic Mira shot out vivid red rays. Herschel 

 considered it midway in brightness between a Arietis and 

 Aldebaran. 



Nov. 2. — There was even an increase, in the judgment 

 of Herschel. 



Nov. II. — Visible as early as Aldebaran and Mars. 



Nov. 20. — As bright as, but not brighter than stars of 

 the second magnitude, according to Herschel, but on the 

 25th much brighter than Menkar, though less than Alde- 

 baran, according to Wargentin. 



Dec. 4. — Only equal to a Arietis. 



Dec. 7 and 10. — So much diminished since Nov. 25, 

 that it was now hardly equal to Menkar, and its colour 

 was now whiter. 



Dec. 25. — Before the moon rose, equal to y Ceti, or of 

 the third magnitude. 



Dec. 29. — Only a little brighter than the fourth magni- 

 tude ; not equal to y or 8 Ceti. 



Argelander gives for the date of maximum 1779, 

 Nov. 6. 



THE TASMANIANS 



THE historical -^triodi of this singular race of mankind 

 has lasted no longer than a centuiy, for up to one 

 hundred years ago they had unimpeded sway in the island 

 of Van Diemen. Once invaded by Europeans, they had 

 inevitably to succumb, and they gradually but speedily 

 dwindled away, the last of them having died about two 

 years ago, so that now they are completely extinct. 



The island when discovered by Tasman contained 

 about 7,000 inhabitants. In the year 1803 it was annexed 

 by Britain for a penal settlement. Hatred, amounting to 

 display of violence, broke out between the aborigines and 

 the criminal occupiers of the soil. The scattered remnants 

 of the native tribes were subsequently gathered together, 

 and provided for by the Government at various retreats, 

 until the last of the race in course of time passed away. 

 Dr. Barnard Davis, F.R.S., the well-known ethnologist, in 

 a recent paper,' endeavours to prove by the comparison 

 of a skeleton, and some skulls of an Australian and a 

 Tasmanian, that these two people belonged to two dis- 

 tinct races of man, having been previously erroneously 

 confounded together. 



I "On the Osteology and Peculiarities of the Tasmanians, a Race of Man 

 Recently become Extinct." Reprint 4to from the " Natuurkundige Verhande- 

 lingen der HoDandsche Maatschappij der Wetenschappen." 3rd Verz, Deel 

 II., No. 4. Illu-trated by four splendid lithographic plates. 



Almost the only relics which the Tasmanains have left 

 behind them are their bones. Fortunately before the 

 entire extinction of the race, men of science had begun to 

 see the importance of the study of craniology, so that a 

 few skulls, but still only a fttvf, have been collected and 

 preserved. One chief reason of the scarcity of crania is 

 the manner of the disposal of the dead — by fire. These 

 were often placed in a hollow tree, surrounded by spears, 

 so that on the occurrence of any bush fire the bones even 

 were certain to be consumed. Two out of the twelve 

 skulls in Dr.' Davis' collection have been rescued from 

 fire. Up to the last three years there was not a single 

 Tasmanian skeleton in any European collection. At the 

 present time there are four in England — two, one a male 

 and the other a female, being in the Museum of the 

 Royal College of Surgeons. Two skeletons, also of 

 opposite sexes, are in the Museum of the Royal Society 

 of Tasmania, Hobart Town. 



The chief works of art, of which, unfortunately, but few 

 are preserved, consist of beautiful necklaces made by 

 stringing the iridescent shells of Purpura elenchus upon 

 thin sinews, also of very rude implements, chippings of 

 a dark-coloured chert, exactly like that used by the 

 Kanakas of the Sandwich Islands, and, lastly, fishing 

 nets. The natives on the south and west coasts make a 

 kind of "catamaran" from rushes. The spears, about 

 ten feet long, are made of the heavy, hard wood of the '' tea 

 tree " pointed and hardened in the fire, and straightened 

 by being passed from end to end between the teeth. 



For long the Tasmanians ani Australiins were con- 

 founded together, and Europeans who visited the country 

 did not improve matters by calling both races, without 

 distinction, " black," though the colour of their skin 

 was removed from a negroid blackness, being of a 

 "dull dark" colour in the Tasmanian, and "chocolate, 

 coffee-coloured, or nutmeg-coloured" in the Australian.^ 

 There was, moreover, a striking difference between the 

 two people, the Tasmanian being stout and broad- 

 shouldered, while there was such a degree of lankness in 

 the Australian as to cause the former to appear stout. 

 Prof. Huxley, who visited both countries, says of the 

 former people that they " are totally different from the 

 Australians." 



The Tasmanians were rather short, being below the 

 average of Europeans in stature. The mean height of 

 twenty-three men was found to be 5 ft. 3|^in., or 1,618 mm. ; 

 that of twenty-nine women was only 4 tt. 11 J in., or 1,50'? 

 mm. There are, however, instances, as in othc races, of 

 tall stature among the Tasmanians, for several have been 

 foimd to be 6 fc. in height by measurement. The Austra- 

 Hans are a taller people. Out of thirteen Shirk's Bay 

 natives who ware measured twelve were 5 ft. 10 in. in 

 height, but "there seems," observes Mr. Oldfield, "as 

 much variation among these savages as there is among 

 civilised nations, the mean height being no greater than 

 it is in England." The Tasmanians differed strikingly from 

 the Australians in being robuster ; and that this is no 

 superficial character, but one of race, can be proved by 

 reference to their bones. A question, now unfortunately 

 too late to solve, is — What was the amount of difference 

 between the diiTerent tribes of Tasmania ? For it is 

 known that there were tribes in the island ditTfering to the 

 extent of the possession of dialects mutually unintelligible. 

 With regard to the Australians, some ethnologists main 

 tain that they have physical characters so distinct as to 

 admit of being divided into a woolly-haired and a flowing- 

 haired race. 



There is, moreover, a striking difference in the structure 

 of the hair in the two races respectively ; that of the 

 Australians growing in flowing ringlets, while the hair of 

 the Tasmanian, being excentrically elliptical on section, 

 has a tendency to twist, and thus comes to grow in small 



» It is to be hoped that in future, in order to avoid such vagueness of 

 terminology, travellers will adopt M.Broca's useful colour-types. Vide the 

 British Association's " Anthropological Notes and Queries." 



