resemblances were not discoveraljle here and thei-o in tlic (jonipared 



no solid reasons for deriving the Tasmanians and ,\.ustr.ilians 

 independently from the Africans, if it be right to say that they 

 are sprung from the Africans at all. It is perhaps nearer the 

 truth to .say that the Tasmanians iji common with other Papuans 

 are of the same .-.tock as the Negroes, the connnon ancestry Ijeing 



)ng foreign admixture. 



S^ew Caledonia as the probable 



may be tor ta I Inig in with the .^.-uggestion. In physical appearance 



of New Caledonia like oth<'r dark Papuans bear a strong likcne-^s 

 to the Tasmanians. There is no better basis for .Mr. Latham's 

 suggestion beyond this likene>,s and tlie surmise that as it seemed 

 improbable tl'iat Tasmania hud ])een peopled fmm Australia, its 

 inhabitants might po-ssibly have drifted from tlie n<'arest settle 

 nuMit of ]*,-ipuans most reseinliling themselves in appearance. Of 



mens given by (Tulielent/. in his Die Melanesischen Sprachen.* 



relatr'd to (Hther Australian or Tasmanian word- indiUbrently are 

 'iii!unya."mnndig,' ' muanden,' ' nmala ' im.^r, ' dendan ' to cowfi 

 awaij ;uid ' adlieya 'foot. Certainly few and douljtful analogues, 

 ^ome of tlie New Caledonian diakvt^, have an article, some have 

 a plural. Tasmanian has neither, and the same holds good of 

 Australian commonly though not invariably. A peculiarity of 

 ^'ew Caledonian is the use of dirterent forms of numerals accord- 

 ing as an object is animated or not. The pronouns in having a 

 dual resemble those of Australia and so far as can be known differ 

 from those of Tasmania. Yiellai-d mentions that ' -ri ' and ' -ra ' 

 are suffixed to substances to indicate /rJiose and irhirh respectively, 

 a feature unknown in the Australian and Tasmanian. There is 

 no necessity for further compHrison. The conc-lu.sion from the 

 only available cvidenc<> is not in favour of atHnity between New 

 Caledonian and the other two languages. Its phonetic .system is 



