AND PAPUAN RACES. 83 



sembling; and often identical with those of the known 

 Papuan lang'uag'es of Torres Strait,* and which I 

 believe to have been derived from the latter, seems to 

 indicate a degree of long continued intercourse be- 

 tween the two races : for changes in language to so 

 great an extent are not effected in a short space 

 of time any more than the nearly complete fusion of 

 two different races which has evidently, taken place 

 at the Prince of Wales Islands. Scarcely opposible 

 to this supposition is the extreme improbability that 

 the Papuans, who had nothing to gain from so 

 comparatively inferior a race as the Austrahan, 

 should be indebted to the latter for the words com- 

 mon to both found to exist in the Kowrareg'a and 

 Miriam languages. 



Another mode of procedure suggests itself to one 

 endeavouring to trace the proximate origin of the 

 Australians — and that is, to search the records of 

 voyagers and others for any traces of such customs, 

 the use of certain implements, &c., as are supposed 

 to be most characteristic of these people. Yet, 

 taking, for example, the boomerang f and throwing 



* As means of comparison I used the Darniey and Murray 

 Island vocabulary given in Jukes' Voyage of the Fly, also a 

 MS. one of my own, which furnishes some additional particu- 

 lars ; some words from Massid given by Jukes ; and a few from 

 Mount Ernest procured by myself. 



t Some of the "fowling sticks" of the ancient Egyptians 

 closely resemble the boomerang in form and appear to have been 

 used in a similar manner, but I am not aware that anything 

 approaching it has been seen elsewhere. A specimen which 



G 2 



