394 PRINCIPAL SIR W. TURNER ON 



distinct subdivision of the black races. Flower thought them to be aberrant 

 members of the Melanesian group modified from the original type. Ling Roth con- 

 sidered that the physical characters, manners, customs, mental qualities and language 

 of the Tasmanians supported the theory that they were the aboriginal inhabitants of 

 Australia, in course of time displaced by the present straight-haired Australian natives. 



If the Tasmanian occupied his island when it formed continuous land with Australia, 

 and arrived in it along with the marsupial mammals, his advent would go back to a 

 time before land and water had assumed their present relations, thousands of years ago. 

 If a great migration eastwards from Asia of the early Negritos did take place, they may 

 at that period have reached Tasmania by way of the Australian continent. Though, as 

 has already been stated, a woolly-haired race is not now represented in Australia, the 

 tendency of the South Australians to show Tasmanian characters in the cranial vault 

 is worthy of consideration in this particular, as an indication of the probable route of 

 migration and of racial affinity. 



When the level of land and water changed and the formation of Bass's Straits 

 severed the two countries, Tasmania became isolated. Hence arose a condition, speci- 

 ally emphasised by Sir Wm. Flower, in which their geographical position, outside the 

 track of commerce and civilisation, precluded the Tasmanians from being crossed with 

 and influenced by other races. Close inter-breeding was thus necessitated, which 

 during the centuries and in a limited population would intensify, perpetuate, and give 

 permanency to physical and other characters which might arise from time to time 

 amongst them, and would accentuate differences between them and the parent stock 

 from which they had sprung. Hence the Tasmanians would assume characters which 

 would give them the aspect of a race distinct from the other races in more or less 

 proximity to them. The evidence seems to be in favour of the descent of the Tasmanians 

 from a primitive Negrito stock, which migrated across Australia, rather than by the 

 route of the Melanesian Oceanic islands lying to the north and east of the Australian 

 continent. 



Sagittal Contours. 



In my memoir on the Crania collected by the " Challenger " and in several subsequent 

 publications I have figured vertical antero-posterior sections of skulls, made immediately 

 on one side of the mesial plane, and I have stated the diameter of the lines radiating from 

 the basion across the cranial cavity, to definite points on the surface of the skull, as well 

 as certain other measurements. 



In the third part of my memoir on Indian crania and in that on skulls from Borneo 

 and other parts of Malaya I marked out a nasio-tentorial plane (n. t. ) drawn from the nasion 

 to the upper border of the groove for the lateral sinus, which divided the cranial cavity 

 into a cerebral part above this plane, and a basal part for the lodgment of the cerebellum, 

 pons, and medulla. Four of the radii from the basion intersected this plane, and divided 

 the cerebral part of the cavity into regions which approximately represented the position 



