PHYSIOGRAPHY OF AUSTRALASIA. , 3 , 9 



are taken at a great number of carefully selected stations, and the results tabulated and 

 published. A daily weather-chart is also published, which combines tin- tel. Drains from all 

 the colonies telegrams which the several colonies interchange for public information. 



In Queensland, the formation of an observatory has been commenced only recently. 

 In January, 1887, Mr. Clement L. Wragge, Government Meteorologist, was appointed, 

 and under his energetic supervision the Observatory is becoming rapidly furnished with 

 meteorological standard instruments with instruments for recording automatically barometer, 

 wind, temperature, etc., and observing stations are being established in the interior of 

 the colony for general meteorological purposes ; and for daily weather-marking, during 

 1887, a daily weather-map was commenced, which shows the weather in all the colonies 

 of Australasia. The Observatory contains also -a 4^-inch equatorial instrument by Ross, 

 of London, also a transit instrument, clocks, chronographs, etc., and it is anticipated that 

 a suitable building will soon be erected for it near the present site on Wind-mill Hill. 



In Adelaide, meteorological observations were begun in 1839, by Sir George S. 

 Kingston, and carried on without interruption for more than forty years. More recently, 

 a Government meteorological observatory was started under the superintendence of Mr. 

 C. Todd, Postmaster-General, and gradually the observing stations have been established 

 at a great number of places in the southern part of the colony ; and, in 1874, all the 

 overland telegraph stations were made observing stations. In 1874, advantage was taken 

 of the transit of Venus to get a large equatorial, with 8-inch object glass, and other 

 valuable astronomical instruments. A fine observatory was built, in the park-land on the 

 west side of the city, to receive this, together with various first-class recording instruments 

 for the completion of the set of meteorological instruments. More recently, a high-class 

 meridian circle, with 6-inch telescope and all the more recent improvements, has been 

 added, completing the outfit of a first-class observatory. From the daily meteorological 

 observations, and the telegrams from the other colonies, a daily weather-chart is 

 published, showing the weather conditions in Australia generally. The meteorological 

 and astronomical observations have been published in a number of handy 'volumes 

 issued by the Government. 



THE AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINES. 



'"TH HE first discoverers of Australia who landed on its shores found the country 

 sparsely inhabited by roving bands of nomad hunters, whom ethnologists have 

 found it impossible to class with any one of the ascertained stocks of the human race. 

 Every classification proposed has difficulties in its way so great that some writers have 

 been inclined to look upon the Australians as a distinct race. We are not, however, 

 limited to this conclusion ; and the probable solution of the difficult)- may be found in 

 the theory that the Tasmanians represented the primitive inhabitants of Australia, who 

 on the Continent were partly exterminated, and partly absorbed, by the invading ancestors 

 of the present aborigines. It is probable that these invaders spread over the country 

 from the northern or north-western shores of the Continent, along three well-marked lines 

 of advance, to its southern coast ; but it is evident that they did not reach Tasmania. 

 Whence they came it is impossible to say with any degree of certainty ; but if, 



