324 



NA TURE 



\_Aug. 15, 1872 



ciently well known, which can be said to present in any great 

 degree the characteristics of a prima;val people, and that is the 

 Australians. As I have elsewhere noticed, all the weapons and 

 tools of the Australians whatever the uses to which they are ap- 

 plied, are closely allied to each other in form. The spear, the 

 club, the malga, the boomerang, and the heileman, or rudi- 

 mentary shield, all pass into each other by sub-varieties and 

 connecting links, and all consist of the but slightly modified 

 natural forms of the stems of trees, and other natural productions. 

 The Australian in his aits corresponds the most closely of any 

 people now living to ihose of the palxolithic age. I lis stone a,\e 

 is sometimes held in the hand when used, and like the pahx'O- 

 lithic man, he has not yet conceived the idea of boring a hole 

 through it for the insertion of a handle. In some cases he cannot 

 without instruction e\en understand the use of such a hole when 

 he sees it in the a.xes of European manufacture. A most re- 

 markable instance of this was brought to my notice not long ago 

 by Mr. Grimaldi, who found on the site of a deserted native 

 camping-ground, a European axe having a hole for the handle, 

 which the natives, unable to conceive the use of this part, had 

 filled up with gum, and hafted by means of a withy bent round 

 the outsides of the hole, in accordance with their traditional 

 custom. In the temporary museum established here during 

 the meeting of the Association, you will see a case con- 

 taining knives of stone, glass, and iron, all of exactly the same 

 form, and hafted, if one may use such a term for the attempt to 

 form a handle, precisely in the same manner ; showing with what 

 tenacity these people retain their ancient forms, even after they 

 have been supplied with European materials. 



Now it has been shown that in some cases — and here I espe- 

 cially refer to the account lately pubUshed by Mrs. Millett, of the 

 Native School, established under conditions only partially favour- 

 able to its success, in the interior of Western Australia * — 

 The Australians are found to be not only capable, but even 

 quick in receiving instraction. It is evident, therefore, that 

 we should be wrong if we were to attribute the extraordinary 

 retardation of culture on the Australian continent to racial inca- 

 pacity alaic ; racial incapacity is one item, but not the only item 

 to be considered in studying ihe development of culture. 



The earliest inhabitants ^f ihe globe as they spread themselves 

 over the earth, would carry w iih them the rudiments of culture 

 which they possessed, and we should naturally expect to find 

 that the most primitive arts were, in the first instance, the most 

 widely disseminated. Amongst the primseval weapons of the 

 Austialians I have traced the boomerang, and the rudimentary 

 parrying shield — which latter is especially a primitive implement 

 — to the Dravidian races of the Indian peninsular and to the 

 ancient Egyptians, and although this is not a circumstance to be 

 relied upon by itself, it is woiihy of careful attention in connec- 

 tion with the circumstance tliat these races have all been traced 

 by Prof. Huxley to the Auslraloid stock, and that a connection 

 between the Australian and Dravidian languages has been stated 

 to exist by Mr. Morris, the Kev. R. Caldwell, Dr. Bleek, and 

 others, t And here I must ask for one moment to repeat the 

 reply which I have elsewhere given to the objection which has 

 been made to my including these weapons under the same class, 

 " that the Dravidian boomerang does not return like the Aus- 

 tralian weapon." The return llight is not a matter of such pri- 

 mary imporlance as to constitute a generic difference, if I may 

 use the expression, the utility of the return flight has been greatly 

 exaggerated ; it is owing simply to the comparative thinness and 

 lightness of the Australian weapon. All who have witnessed its 

 employment by the natives, concur in saying that it has a random 

 range in its return flight. Any one who will take the trouble to 

 practise with the different forms of this weapon, will perceive 

 that the essential principle of the boomerang, call it by whatever 

 name you please, consists in its bent and Hat form, by means of 

 which it can be thrown with a rotatory movement, thereby in- 

 creasing the ran^K and flatness 0/ the trajectory. I have practised 

 with the boomerangs of different nations. I made z^fac simile of 

 the Egyptian boomerang in the British Museum, and practised 

 with it for some time upon Wormwood Scrubs, and I found 

 that in time I could increase the range from fifty to one 

 hundred paces, which is much farther than I could throw 

 an ordinary stick of the same size with accuracy. I also 

 succeeded in at last obtaining a slight return of flight ; in 

 fact it Hies belter than many Australian boomerangs, for they 

 vary considerably in size, weight, and form, and many will not 

 return when thrown. The efficacy of the boomerang consists 

 d Ihe Savage," by Mrs. E. 



* "An Australian Parsonage, or Ihe Settler a 

 Millet, chap. vii. 



1 Journal of ihe Anthropological Institute, N 



cl.i.,JulyK:7.. 



entirely in the rotation, by means of which it sails up to a bird 

 upon the wing and knocks it down with its rotating arras ; very 

 few of them have any twist in their construction. The stories 

 about hitting an object with accuracy behind the thrower are 

 nursery tales ; but a boomerang, when thrown over a river or 



swamp will return and be saved To deny the 



affinity of the Australian and Dravidian or Egyptian boomerang 

 on account of the absence of a return flight would be the same as 

 denying the affinity of two languages whose grammatical con- 

 struction was the same because of their differing materially in 

 their vocabularies. 



(To be continued.) 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 



[ The Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions expressed 

 by his correspondents. No notice is taken of anonymous 

 communications. ] 



Kinetic Energy 



Professor Everett asks from what source is the gain of 

 Kinetic energy in water which has flowed from higher to lower 

 latitudes derived ? I answer, undoubtedly from the earth's 

 rotation. If so, it will be asked, what becomes of the Kinetic 

 Energy which disappears when water flows from a lower to a 

 higher latitude .' Mr. Ferrel, a physicist of high authority in 

 all questions relating to the earth's rotation, says that it is all 

 consumed in friction. " If a free body on the earth's surface," 

 says Mr. Ferrel, '* should be moved from a lower to a higher 

 latitude without friction by a force in the direction of the meri- 

 dian, it would acquire a certain amount of relative eastward 

 velocity, which would be the same [whether the body moved 

 toward the pole with a very slow uniform velocity arising from 

 a single impulse, or whether it moved with a continual accele- 

 rated velocity down a gradient by the force of gravity. If a 

 particle of atmosphere or of the ocean is moved in the same 

 way by a similar force, and does not acquire the same amount 

 of relative eastward velocity, the difference bet-iueen the velocities 

 in the two cases is the true measure of the effect of friction." 

 (Nature, June 13). 



In my last two letters on the subject, I have inadvertently 

 made a similar statement. But as regards the amount of 

 energy lost being the measure of the effect of the friction, we 

 are, I fear, evidently both wrong. A considerable amount of 

 the 9,025 foot-pounds of energy would be consumed, not in 

 friction, but in work of rotation. But let it be observed that 

 so far as the argument under discusssion is concerned, it is a 

 matter of perfect indifference in %\hat way the energy is con- 

 sumed. The point which Prof. Everett, Mr. Ferrel, and 

 all those who defend Dr. Carpenter's theory has to explain is 

 this, viz., How is it that six foot-pounds of energy can carry 

 a pound of water from the equator to latitude 60°, while dur- 

 ing the passage of the pound of water not less than 9,925 foot- 

 pounds of energy is consumed in overcoming the resistance to 

 its eastward motion ? How is it that in a fluid, in wdiich the 

 molecular resistance to motion is equal in all directions, a body 

 manages to lose 1,500 times more energy in moving in one 

 direction than it does in another, and yet the velocity of motion 

 is the same in both directions ? Then if this cannot be ex- 

 plained, how is the gravitation theory of oceanic circulation to 

 be maintained ? James Croll 



Edinburgh, August 9 



CONTENTS Pacb 



The British Association 297 



The Beginnings OF Life— II. (With Illustrations.) =99 



Notes 304 



The British Association Meeting at Brighton 305 



Inaugural Address of Dr. W. B. Carpenter, F.R.S. , President 30S 



Sections A, B, and D — Opening Addresses 307-323 



Letters to the Editor: — 



Kinetic Energy — J Croll, F.G S 323 



-Vol. vi. p. 273, col. I, line 31, forj" Lenou's " read *' Lesson's" : 

 'special" read ** spiral" ; line 57, for ''fold" read "folds"; 

 5, for " Edentata " read "Edentate." 



The British Association. — Authors of papers are requested 

 to fa'i'our the Editor of 'Na.TVK^ u<ith copies or abstracts of their 

 cotnnuinications as soon as possible, addressed to him at the Post 

 Office in the Reception Room, as by these means alone can an accu- 

 rate and early notice be insured. The Editor appeals to men of 

 science to aid him in his attempt to give an account of the results of 

 their investigations to their brethren throughout the 'world. 



