90 Origin and Migrations of the Polynesian Nation. 



opinion, the source from whence civilisation had flowed into 

 these regions. But the Polynesian migration from the Archi- 

 pelago bad taken place before this very ancient Sanscrit infusion 

 into the Malay language had commenced ; for there is no evi- 

 dence of such an infusion in the Polynesian languages. That 

 migration, therefore, must have been effected in a period of the 

 remotest antiquity, — in all likelihood long ages before the 

 Argonautic Expedition had gone forth in search of the Golden 

 Fleece, or Agamemnon, and the Greeks had sat down under the 

 walls of Troy. It is matter of history tbat, in the ages immedi- 

 ately after the deluge, civilisation had advanced simultaneously 

 into Egypt on the one hand, and to Eastern Asia on the other. 

 Tbe learned Jesuit, Du Halde, author of a famous " History of 

 China," informs us on the authority of the Cbinese annals, that 

 the foundations of that vast empire were laid about two hundred 

 years after the flood ; and there is reason to believe that at as 

 early a period in the history of man the comparative civilisation 

 of the age had reached the south-eastern coasts of Asia, and that 

 that one primitive language, of which Sir Stamford Raffles speaks 

 as the common parent of the Malayan and Polynesian tongues, 

 was then spoken in the Indian Archipelago. 



We are, therefore, warranted to consider the Polynesian 

 nation, scattered as it has been for untold ages over the multi- 

 tude of the isles of the vast Pacific Ocean, as one of the most 

 ancient and unmixed divisions of the family of man ; and there is 

 reason to believe that the enquiries of the future literati of 

 Australia will one day be directed with intense interest to the 

 investigation of this very interesting subject. I am happy, 

 accordingly, to inform the Society, that provision has 

 long since been made for the prosecution of such inquiries 

 in this colony ; for a near relative of mine, the late Mr. John 

 Hunter Baillie, who died in this city fifteen years since, left the 

 whole of his property, probably amounting to not less than ten 

 thousand pounds, for the endowment of two professorships in 

 the forthcoming Presbyterian College, one of which is for the 

 Oriental and Polynesian languages. 



In a former part of this lecture I think I succeeded in estab- 

 hshing the four following propositions, viz. : — ■ 



1. That under the operation and influence of well-known 

 causes, that are still in operation throughout the South Sea 

 Islands, the Polynesian race has spread itself in the course of 

 long ages past, over the vast extent of the Pacific Ocean — from 

 the Sandwich Islands in the northern, to New Zealand in the 

 southern hemisphere, and from the western shores of the Pacific, 

 to Easter Island, within eighteen hundred miles of the American 

 land. 



