AUSTRALIA AND EUROPE FORMERLY ONE CONTINENT. 27 
teaching, — a race unfitted for civilization, and so near the brute 
creation that it might be appropriately classed with it, if it was 
not for its power of language and the only ingenious thing in 
its possession — the boomerang. The reason why New Hol- 
land could not make any great strides in civilization, conceding' 
even that the natives as a race were capable of it, are easily 
found in the nature of the country. It wants moisture and 
nutritious plants for man and beast. It requires immense 
tracts of land to feed even a flock of sheep, wild animals are 
scarce; and whilst every other part of the globe has added 
edible plants to our table, we have not received a single addi- 
tion from New Holland ; indeed, Europeans who should have 
to rely for their food upon what Australian vegetation can 
supply, would share the melancholy fate of Burke and Wills 
when they tried to eke out their existence by eating the 
wretched nardoo fruits of Australian swamps. There could be 
no flocking together of men as long as these conditions were 
not remedied, no permanent interest in property, and no im- 
provement. All was hopeless stagnation 
But if, under these unfavourable conditions, man has existed, 
at least as far as we historically know, for several centuries,* 
we may conclude that he could exist in Europe, even during 
the Eocene period ; when the same, or a closely similar climate, 
vegetation, and perhaps fauna, prevailed there. We may also 
be sure that, with such surroundings, whatever his race may 
have been, he could not have arrived at a much higher degree 
of civilization than the wretched aborigines who are now dis- 
appearing in Australia. 
Bearing in mind that, at one period of the earth/s history, 
there flourished in Europe a vegetation very similar to that 
still beheld in Australia ; but that the whole of it has been 
swept away, to make room for other vegetable forms, leaving 
no trace behind except what is recorded in the great stone-book 
of nature, New Holland is highly instructive. It is a faithful 
picture of what the aspect of our flora must have been ages 
ago ; and on paying a visit to Australia we are, as it were, 
transporting ourselves back to ante-historical periods. The 
* I am fully aware that some anthropologists regard (perhaps with, 
justice) the Australian and Papuan races as identical ; hut I have avoided 
complicating the question here discussed by the introduction of that subject. 
The most northern country occupied by Papuans are the Andaman islands, 
and I have shown, some years ago, in the Athenceum , that they were visited 
about 1000 .years back by Sindbad the Sailor (the popular version of whose 
narratives is familiar to us through the “ Arabian Nights’ Entertainment”), 
and that the inhabitants were at that time as wild as they are at the present 
day, though in contact with the civilization of Asia. 
