144 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [vn. 



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 and 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, noses ; and lips which, though prominent, are 

 eminently flexible. 



The skulls of these people are always long and narrow, 

 with a smaller development of the frontal sinuses than 

 usually corresponds with such largely developed brow 

 ridges. An Australian skull of a round form, or one the 

 transverse diameter of which exceeds eight-tenths of its 

 length, has never been seen. These people, in a word, 

 are eminently " dolichocephalic," or long-headed ; but, 



