NATURAL HISTORY MISCELLANY. 381 
ously shaped relics, found in and near this city. We now call attention 
to the relic figured here as one that is unique, at least so far as New Jer- 
sey is concerned. About four and a half inches long it is very accu- 
c sloped to the back, which is a flat ridge, uniformly one-thirty- 
econd of an inch in width, from the neck to the posterior end, which 
curving upward, is about double bus thickness on the edge. "The head 
of the stone is oval, accurately cut, with a width in the centre of three- 
sixteenths of an inch. The etd protuberances, stand out from the 
head one-third of an Fig. 85. 
inch, and have a narrow 
in Hrs illustration (Fig. 
b as the 
SB CRI FOR is » à 
At either end is a p drilled; in the front the hole is about a quarter 
of an inch from the end and drilled obliquely, until it meets the drilling 
from the neck, which is bored at a similar angle to the neck, as the 
under one is to the base. The holes at the posterior end are slaslerty 
bored. The material is hornblend. 
If the stone is meant for a representation of some animal the holes 
would seem to * intended for the insertion of legs; but probabiy were 
nsed to insert a string or sinew, that the figure might be carried about 
the neck. We have never seen any large collection of these ** Indian” 
relics, and do not know whether it is a common form elsewhere or not, 
but, as we previously stated, it is novel to New Jersey. It was ploughed 
up near the city, in a neighborhood where only axes and arrow points are 
to be met with, and those not abundantly. — CHARLES C. ABBOTT, M.D. 
© 
ORIGIN OF THE TASMANIANS. — Mr. Bonwick, in a recent paper “ On the 
nians have now b ost extinct, an old woman being the only sur- 
vivor of ther y were related in manners and in general physique 
to the neighboring Australians, but were allied by black skin and wooll 
hair to the di icans, while they were assimilated by resemblanc 
of language, customs, and habits of thought, to races scattered 
over vast areas. T r seeks plain this relation by con- 
structing an ideal southern continent, whence all the dark-colored races 
surrounding the Indian Ocean, extending into the Pacific and south- 
erm OCEA radiated. He regards the Tasmanian as probably 
