I INTRODUCTION 27 



the most beautifully illustrated books on natural 

 history, was for several years the guest of Sir John 

 Franklin, and did most of his work in Tasmania. 

 We will conclude this sketch with some account 

 of the characteristics of the native tribes of 

 Tasmania, as far as they are known, and of the 

 events which resulted in their extermination. The 

 Tasmanians were of medium height and good 

 physical proportions ; their colour was very dark 

 brown or black and their hair golden brown and 

 woolly like an African negro's. In transverse 

 section the hair is flat, resembling that of the 

 negritic Andamanese. This characteristic separ- 

 ates them sharply from the Australian natives, 

 whose hair may be wavy, but is not woolly, and is 

 oval in transverse section. The wooUiness of the 

 hair links them to the negritic population of New 

 Guinea and the Pacific (Melanesians), and certain 

 osteological characters, especially in the skull, 

 confirm this view of the affinities of the Tasmanians. 

 The skull has a very characteristic shape and can 

 be easily picked out from a collection of Australian 

 or South Sea Islander skulls by a number of dis- 

 tinctive properties. From the x^ustralian type it 

 is altogether different ; we miss in it the peculiar 

 roof -shaped top, the massive overhanging brows, 

 and the narrow elongated form (i.e. pronounced 

 doHchocephaly) of the Australian (Fig. 5, No. 992), 

 the Tasmanian skull (No. 1017) being almost 

 globular in shape, not pronouncedly dolichoceph- 

 alic, and with the brows not greatly projecting. 



