NOTES. 



F. — NOTE TO CHAPTER XIV. 



THE CIRCULATION OF THE BLOOD. 



There is no doubt that the aborigines had a knowledge of the circulation of 

 the blood from the heart through the arteries, and of its return by the veins. To 

 these blood-vessels they give distinctive names. An artery is called ' gnullman ; ' 

 a vein is called ' karkuuran kuureek,' ' running blood.' Very careful inquiries 

 have been made into this subject from the most intelligent of the aborigines • 

 and it is evident that they recognize the connection between the heart and the 

 pulse, and the fact that, while the arteries carry the blood from the heart, the 

 veins return it to the heart again. On its being hinted to them that they may 

 have got this information from the white man, they said that they knew all 

 about it long before the white man came. It need scarcely be said that they 

 have no idea of the circulation of the blood through the lungs, or of the functions 

 of the ditferent parts of the heart, as brought to light by the researches of 

 Servetus, Le Vasseur, and William Harvey. 



G.— NOTE. 



REPORTS OF GOVERNMENT INSPECTORS OF ABORIGINAL SCHOOLS. 



As a fitting conclusion to this work, and in corroboration of the very hiwh 

 estimate which the author has formed of the intelligence of the aboricrines, he 

 has the greatest pleasure in giving the following summary of a number of 

 reports of the Government inspectors of the Victorian State schools, and of 

 remarks which have been kindly written by them for his use. 



At each of the aboriginal stations there is a State-school, which is periodically 

 examined, along with other schools, and on the same footing with them, by the 

 Government inspectors of schools. The experience of these gentlemen is that, 

 up to a certain age, the aboriginal children are quite equal to those of European 

 parentage in their capacity for learning the ordinary branches of an Eno-lish 

 education. Indeed, the former excel the latter in those studies which depend on 

 memory and power of imitation ; but, on the other hand, those branches of 

 knowledge which require abstraction, and in which a greater demand is made on 

 the reasoning faculties, are learned by them with difficulty. In reading, writino-, 

 spelling, singing, and geography, they distance white children in rapidity of 



