226 EIGHT EEV. S. THORNTON^ D.D., ON 



but they are a picture-drawing race, aud fond of attempts in that 

 direction. 



A Member. — The ethnological problem suggested by these 

 various drawings and inscriptions is extremely intei'esting when 

 you notice that the author has associated the aborigines of 

 Australia with the Cushite race. Some two years ago I was 

 in Australia, and had many conversations with Mr. Worsnop, 

 referred to in the paper; and, as I had some knowledge of Akkadian 

 inscriptions, he asked me if there was any resemblance between 

 tlie remains of the aborigines of Australia and those of the 

 Syrians and Babylonians. I carefully looked at them, and 

 can see no connection or resemblance. Of course there is the 

 general resemblance that seems to exist in the writings of a 

 number of ancient races — that of picture-writing. I have noticed 

 that the curious head which appears in the Australian drawing.'^ 

 with the absence of a mouth, and something like that which has 

 been shown to us, appears in the Hittite inscriptions. In all 

 likelihood, therefore, I should say there must be some connection 

 between the descendants of Ham and the aborigines of Australia, 

 though it is a long jump to go back from the present aborigines 

 to the time when the Hamitic race occupied Babylonia, and wrote 

 those remarkable Akkadian inscriptions which are being read at 

 the present day. Undoubtedly the Akkadian inscriptions belong 

 to a race which had the art of writing even before they came into 

 Babylonia ; but these inscriptions were evidently originally made 

 on stone, and in Babylonia there was no stone, and the older 

 cuneiform inscriptions are developments of the older Akkadian. 

 No doubt there must have been a considerable amount of inter- 

 course between Australia and other countries long before the 

 English or even the French set foot upon the island. Mr. Wors- 

 nop told me he had — in fact he showed me — an object found 

 buried some 20 feet under the earth at the root of a tree. I am 

 not able to point out the exact geological position where the 

 object was found ; but he was good enough to give me an account 

 of it, and to allow me to bring it home and take it to the British 

 Museum, and there the head of the Chinese Department examined 

 it and said it was evidently of Chinese origin, and put the date 

 at something like 200 or 300 years ago. It is the figure of a 

 sage, bearing a pitcher in his hand, which is an emblem of 

 wisdom. The explanation of these objects being found there 



