XXVI. ABSTRACT OP PROCEEDINGS. 



it is the most primitive Papuan speech. Even the roots are in a 

 state of fluctuation and affect various forms. Any labial, or it 

 may be any dental consonant, may be used by a native with a 

 root vowel to express a particular word. The same word can be 

 used as a noun, verb, or adjective, and the broad difference which 

 elsewhere prevails between the parts of speech are here unknown. 

 Monosyllabism prevails, and the roots have preserved a synthetic 

 signification which seems a property of primitive people, but which 

 is in more advanced languages obliterated by specialisation. Thus 

 the native mind aggregates together such ideas as white, bright, 

 eye, sun, day, light, and expresses them by forms of a root word 

 "fire." A method occurs by which not only verbs but other parts 

 of speech are conjugated. Enumeration is of the usual Papuan 

 type, counting by one, one-one, one-two, one-three, five equal a 

 hand (in reference to the digits) five-one, five-two, five-three, five- 

 four, ten equal a head. 



EXHIBITS. 



1. An interesting collection of photographs from the Don 

 Dorrigo and Brush districts, N. S. Wales, chiefly geological, were 

 shewn by His Honor Judge Docker, m.a. 



2. A new Eucalyptus oil was exhibited by Messrs. Baker and 

 Smith of the Technological Museum, Sydney. On rectification 

 this oil was found to contain a fraction boiling between 280° - 

 290° C, equalling 18 per cent, of the whole, and which consisted 

 almost entirely of eudesmol, comparatively in a pure condition. 

 The fraction wholly crystallised in less than one hour. This oil 

 appears to be free from bodies, also of high boiling point, that 

 have previously been found to interfere with and to make the 

 purification of this stearoptene difficult. Eudesmol has now been 

 found to exist in the oils of six of the forty-five species of Eucalypts 

 obtained. If eudesmol shall be found eventually to be of medicinal 

 value, or useful for other purposes, we have in this oil a most pro- 

 lific source of the material. 



3. The latest type of Polariscope (Wright-Newton projecting 

 polariscope) was exhibited by Dr. F. H. Quaife, m.a. 



