18 Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. [Sess. 
Tylor (4), whilst expressing no opinion as to the homogeneity or other- 
wise of the Australian, is perfectly clear that he is something quite apart 
from either the Papuan or the Tasmanian. He says : “ In Australia . . . 
there appears a thin population of roaming savages, strongly distinct from 
the blacker races of New Guinea at the north, and Tasmania at the south.” 
Curr (5) is dogmatic on the point of the racial admixture of the 
Australian. He says : “ I shall proceed to show that the Australian is by 
descent a negro crossed by some other race.” 
De Quatrefages (6) is almost as emphatic as Curr on the duality of the 
Australian, for he states that “ in Australia there are two distinct types — 
Australians proper and Australian Neanderthaloids. . . . This fact can be 
accounted for by presuming that true negroes formerly occupied the whole 
or a part of Australia ; that they were invaded by a black race with straight 
hair, and that it is to a blood-mixture that the differences in the hair must 
be attributed. It is very probable that the Tasmanians furnish this 
negretic element.” 
Mathew (30), who has devoted much painstaking care to the elucidation 
and verification of his theory, is of opinion that the Australian represents 
an admixture of most probably Papuan, Malaysian, and Dravidian 
elements. 
Notwithstanding the eminent character of the authorities just quoted, 
whose evidence seems to trend towards the duality of the Australian 
aboriginal, their ideas are simply torn to metaphorical shreds by the German 
anthropologist, H. Klaatsch (7), who so recently as 1908 writes as follows : — 
“ Views which are absolutely without any scientific basis are sometimes 
given expression to with regard to the origin of the Australian race. 
Australian aboriginals have been claimed to be a mixed race due to the 
crossing of different present existing types of mankind, a Papuan, a negroid, 
and a Dravidian element. Such a view is often repeated in Australian 
ethnographical publications by non-scientifically trained persons, and is 
supposed to be a fact based on osteological investigations ; but whenever I 
have asked the name of the publication giving authority for the statement, 
the information has not been forthcoming ; . . . they never quote Turner’s 
classical work, where the unitary type of the Australian aboriginal is clearly 
explained. ... I agree with Turner in his views of the unitary nature of 
the Australian race. I do not believe that the variations, many of which 
are additional to those mentioned by him, have anything to do with the 
crossing of different races. On the other hand, I consider that the specialisa- 
tion of various types in the Australian is the result of a development due 
to the special condition of the Australian continent during the countless 
