MEMOIR 
39 
in all essentials correct; thus incidentally rebutting various 
strictures passed thereon by those who took their cue from 
Strehlow. Thus, in particular, the charge of having over¬ 
looked a High God as an authentic feature of Arunta religion 
can be met by Spencer with the positive statement that no 
such concept is to be found among them. ‘The word 
Alchera is not applied to any Being, either mythical or 
actually existing. Its use by the missionaries as the equiva¬ 
lent of God is wrong and misleading.’ It may be added that 
the book also contains panoramic sketches, secured during 
the previous visit to the Macdonnell Ranges, which afford 
an excellent idea of the main features of the Arunta country. 
It is ever thus that the artist in Spencer comes to the aid of the 
anthropologist. I may, perhaps, be allowed to mention here 
that my first experience of the cinematograph, used moreover 
in the most ingenious conjunction with the phonograph,was 
provided by Spencer at Oxford when he brought back from 
his Trans-continental expedition of 1901 these visible and 
audible records of the unimaginable human life of the 
Central deserts. 
We have now completed our hasty survey of Spencer’s 
exploratory activities in Australia. Their scientific impor¬ 
tance will be fully appreciated by those who are at the trouble 
to make a careful study of the four treatises already men¬ 
tioned, each of them a masterpiece of descriptive ethnology. 
Less technical in scope, but hardly less illuminating, inas¬ 
much as they exhibit the child of wild Nature in his depen¬ 
dence on an environment of which the geographical and 
zoological features are delineated with a sure hand, are the 
two supplementary works, Across Australia (Macmillan, 
1912) and Wanderings in Wild Australia (Macmillan, 1928). 
It was Spencer’s unfailing habit to post oft to his family 
a continuous diary of his wayfaring, adorned with dashing 
sketches of everything that took his eye. Thus, apart from 
