280 VARIETIES OF THE HUMAN SPECIES xvm 



characters by crossing. In many parts of New Guinea and 

 the great chain of islands extending eastwards and southwards, 

 ending with New Caledonia, they are found in a more or less 

 pure condition, especially in the interior and more inaccessible 

 portions of the islands, almost each of which shows special 

 modifications of the type recognisable in details of structure. 

 Taken altogether, their chief physical distinction from the 

 African Negroes lies in the fact that the glabella and supra- 

 orbital ridges are generally well developed in the males, 

 whereas in Africans this region is usually smooth and flat. 

 The nose, also, especially in the northern part of their 

 geographical range, New Guinea, and the neighbouring islands, 

 is narrower (often mesorhine) and prominent. The cranium is 

 generally higher and narrower. It is, however, possible to find 

 African and Melanesian skulls quite alike in essential characters. 



The now extinct inhabitants of Tasmania were probably 

 pure, but aberrant, members of the Melanesian group, which 

 have undergone a modification from the original type, not by 

 mixture with other races, but in consequence of long isolation, 

 during which special characters have gradually developed. 

 Lying completely out of the track of all civilisation and 

 commerce, even of the most primitive kind, they were little 

 liable to be subject to the influence of any other race, and 

 there is, in fact, nothing among their characters which could 

 be accounted for in this way, as they were intensely, even 

 exaggeratedly, Negroid in the form of nose, projection of 

 mouth, and size of teeth, typically so in character of hair, and 

 aberrant chiefly in width of skull in the parietal region. A 

 cross with any of the Polynesian or Malay races sufficiently 

 strong to produce this would, in all probability, have also left 

 some traces on other parts of their organisation. 



On the other hand, in many parts of the Melanesian region 

 there are distinct evidences of large admixture with Negrito, 

 Malay, and Polynesian elements in varying proportions, pro- 

 ducing numerous physical modifications. In many of the 

 inhabitants of the great island of New Guinea itself and of 

 those lying around it this mixture can be traced. In the 

 people of Micronesia in the north, and New Zealand in the 

 south, though the Melanesian element is present, it is com- 



