CRANIOLOOY OF THE ABORIGINES OF TASMANIA. 381 



In a previous memoir * I made a comparison between the upper and lower dentary 

 arcades in Australian skulls, as regards their overlapping and the length and width of 

 the crowns of the premolar and molar series of teeth, to which I may refer for particulars. 

 In the group of Tasmanian skulls the conditions did not permit of a similar detailed 

 examination and the computing of a dental index after the manner of Flower. In 

 Table II., p. 375, compiled by Knowles and Freire-Marreco from their measurements 

 of the skulls in the Oxford University Museum, the length of the premolars and molars 

 in the upper dentary arcade is given and a dental index has been computed, which 

 ranges from 40*8 to 53*1, with a mean of 45*2, which almost corresponds with the mean 

 of the Australians recorded by Flower. Klaatsch's measurements also show large 

 molars in a Tasmanian skull which he examined. 



Comparison of Tasmanians with other Rages. 



Van Diemen's Land was discovered in 1642 by the Dutch seaman Abel Jansen 

 Tasman, but the name which he gave to the island is now replaced by that of Tasman 

 himself. He observed smoke and heard the sound of people, but made no observations 

 on the inhabitants. 



The first description of the natives was written by M. Crozet, lieutenant in Marion 

 du Fresne's ship Mascarin,^ which anchored in Frederick Henry Bay, in the south of 

 the island, in 1772. They were of ordinary stature, one man being 5 ft. 3 in. ; the skin was 

 black, but when washed it was said to be reddish brown, though smoke and dirt made it 

 look dark. The hair was woolly, tied in peppercorn knots and powdered with red 

 ochre ; the mouth was full, teeth very white ; the nose was flattened ; the eyes were 

 generally small and bilious-looking ; the men were not circumcised, but some had 

 cicatrices on the skin. 



Five years later the great navigator James Cook anchored in January 1777 in 

 Adventure Bay, in the south of the island.! The men were naked, but the women wore 

 a kangaroo skin tied over the shoulders and round the waist. The colour was black, and 

 the skin was marked with scars. The hair of the head was woolly, though in the women 

 it was often completely or partially shorn ; it and the beard, as well as the face, were 

 smeared with red ; the lips were said to be not remarkably thick, nor the nose flat. 

 Mr Wm. Anderson, surgeon to Captain Cook's ship, Resolution, supplemented the above 

 description : the skin, he said, was a dull black, the colour being heightened by smutting 

 the body ; the hair was perfectly woolly and divided into small parcels by grease and 

 red ochre, though in a boy whose head had not been smeared the hair was of the same 

 kind ; the nose was not flat, but broad and full ; the lower part of the face projected ; 

 the teeth were broad but not equal, and the mouth was rather wide. A drawing by 



* Journ. of Anat. and Phys., vol. xxv. p. 416, 1891. 

 t Ling Roth's translation of Crozet's Voyage, p. 18. 

 | Third Voyage to the Pacific Ocean, vol. i. p. 95, London, 1785. 

 TRANS. ROY. SOC. EDIN., VOL. XLVI. PART II. (NO. 17). 59 



