CRANIOLOGY OF THE ABORIGINES OF TASMANIA. 385 



the forearm and leg, their stature, gait, and the external characters generally, led him 

 to take this view. Walker in regard to their black, woolly hair held that in many 

 respects they nearly resembled the African negro. Davies described the skin as less 

 black than in the African negro, slightly more so than in Lascars, but the lips were not 

 so full as in negroes. 



Racial Affinities and Descent of the Tasmanians. 



Guided by the descriptions of the aborigines as seen by navigators, by the naturalists 

 of the several expeditions, and by those who lived on the island and observed the natives 

 for some years prior to their extinction, anthropologists have studied the question 

 of the racial relations and descent of the Tasmanians, and have discussed their possible 

 affinities to the Australians, to Negroes, Negritos, and to the Melanesian or black race of 

 the great Pacific Archipelago. 



In the discussion of this question special attention has to be paid to the geo- 

 graphical position of Tasmania, which, with the exception of the South Island of New 

 Zealand, is the most southern land in the Oceanic area on which the older navigators 

 met with human inhabitants. Though now separated by Bass's Straits from Australia, 

 evidence of various kinds supports the view that in past times it was continuous with 

 the Australian Continent. Bass's Straits, though varying in width between 100 and 

 120 miles, is a shallow sea, at the most not much more than 100 fathoms deep, and 

 somewhat comparable in this respect to the North Sea, which now separates Great 

 Britain from the continent of Europe. But in addition groups of islands are found in 

 the Straits which form an imperfect land bridge between Tasmania and Australia. 

 The consideration of the fauna, more especially the Marsupial mammals, supports 

 the view of the previous continuity of the land. The early navigators frequently 

 referred to the women of Tasmania as wearing the skin of the kangaroo on their 

 backs, and the Tasmanian wolf (Thylacinus cynocejjhalus), the largest existing 

 carnivorous marsupial, and the Tasmanian devil (Sarcophilus ursinus), though now 

 confined to Tasmania, at one time lived in Australia, where their remains have been 

 found. The AVombats (Phascolomys), the Opossum (Trichosurus), the Monotremes 

 Ornithorynchus and Echidna are still extant, both in Australia and Tasmania : in these 

 respects, and in others which might be referred to, a strong affinity exists between the 

 fauna in both regions. 



In considering the origin of the human inhabitants we may put on one side the 

 possibility of a special creation of the Tasmanians, though the naturalists who accom- 

 panied the expeditions of Dumont d'Urville seemed to have favoured the hypothesis 

 that they were a distinct species of man. There remains, therefore, the theory that 

 the aborigines of Tasmania were descended from immigrants from other parts, and as 

 the islands to the south were not populated, the migration would necessarily have been 

 from the north. 



