The Hairless Men of Australia. 393 



proof is incomplete ; but we are not justified in demanding the 

 production of a particular kind of evidence, unless we can show 

 that it exists and might be obtained. We may, for example, 

 logically say, "If your theory be true, connecting links and 

 transition forms must have existed during the lapse of time, 

 and until you can prove that they did exist, we are not con- 

 vinced." But if we ask for so many connecting links within 

 certain limits of time or space, we are bound to show the pro- 

 bability of their having existed within those limits if ever they 

 existed at all. 



Fortunately, it is not necessary that we should make positive 

 affirmations concerning things of which we know little, or 

 nothing at all ; and if, speaking physically, science enlarges the 

 sphere of action assigned to secondary causes, our conception 

 of the First Cause becomes grander in proportion to the preci- 

 sion and complexity of the work which we see performed. If 

 the orchids be only modified descendants of a more ordinary 

 kind of plant, what a wonderful picture of powers, forces, and 

 relations is presented to our view. How inconceivable the Wis- 

 dom which established and guides the whole, and which secured 

 the occurrence of the most skilful and amazing changes of 

 parts and organs, precisely at the right time. If a little flower 

 moved a great poet to " thoughts too deep for tears," surely 

 the " Ways of the Orchids," may excite a reverential contem- 

 plation of Nature, far removed from the arrogant dogmatism 

 which prejudice and ignorance so readily beget. 



THE HAIRLESS MEN OF AUSTRALIA. 



The following curious account of the Bald men of the Balonne 

 is taken from the Sydney Empire, Feb. 19th, 1862, and as it 

 suggests very curious inquiries, both ethnological and physi- 

 ological, it is to be hoped that further information may be 

 obtained. 



" It is now some few years since a report first obtained currency, 

 that, far in the Western interior, beyond the Balonne River, a tribe 

 of aboriginal natives existed who exhibited remarkable physical dis- 

 tinctions from those with whom explorers and other colonists have 

 so long been familiar. It was said that the natives in question were 

 entirely destitute of hair, even on the head, which was as bald as a 

 billiard ball. Other remarkable peculiarities were also mentioned, 

 but the absence of ocular proof led most people to doubt them, and 

 it was pretty generally believed that either the blacks alluded to 

 were merely suffering from some cutaneous disorder, or the tale was 

 one of those bush ' yarns ' which outlying settlers think it no harm 

 to hoax the townsman withal. Yesterday, however, we had an op- 



