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upon the subject, more especially to the Registrar-General of the State for the excellent information published in his "Notes on the Natural History, etc., of Western Australia," and to Mrs. Bates for notes published by her from time to time.

There is no doubt that the aboriginal inhabitants of Australia furnish from many points of view an interesting study. To ethnologists they form a link in the chain of human growth and development the importance of which is tardily being recognized. The question of their origin is the cause of much speculation, and their peculiar rites and ceremonies, so distinctive in character, are beginning to engage scientific attention.

Untouched by civilization, the Australian aboriginal seems to approach very nearly to the primitive type of humanity. He is a wanderer, without permanent habitation or settled abode. He has no arts or manufacture—he does not even till the soil or tame animals for domestic use; and while he has necessarily a language he has no literature, and his ideas of art are crude in the extreme. Religious sense, as we understand the term, is practically absent, and he seems to have no perception of conscience or of moral responsibility. Yet he has a definite tribal organization, a vague family life, some leaning toward the supernatural, and a most intricate and elaborate social structure. He has diverse methods of reckoning degrees of relationship, innumerable traditions and superstitions, curious customs, rites, and ceremonies, and established habits, all of which well repay inquiry.

Those actuated by a desire to civilize the natives are baffled by their ineptitude and lack of intelligence. The missionary finds his efforts to plant Christianity upon them futile on account of the absence of a moral and spiritual nature; the pioneer is compelled to recognize and often to use their unerring instinct in matters of bushcraft, but requires to be ever on guard against their ingrained treachery. The Government, charged with the material welfare of these people whom the white man has dispossessed, and with the administration of justice and prevention of criminal actions as between them, is continually exercised not so much about the right course to pursue as the best means to adopt in doing it.

All these phases give rise to problems that call for solution. No doubt the rapid diminution in numbers caused by the spread of civilization and the adoption of some civilized vices will in many cases lead to absolute extinction, and so solve some of the difficulties. But those are the very facts that make the work of the ethnologist more insistent, if such knowledge now available is not to be for ever lost. "The inhabitants of Australia," wrote Sir William Flower, "have long been a puzzle to ethnologists." Fortunately of late years efforts have been made to solve the puzzle, and there is every hope that before the race passes out of existence a complete record will be secured of every phase of native life and character. In dealing with the subject in this article it is proposed to discuss as concisely as possible the following questions:—

To trace the origin of a race which possesses a history and a literature is often a difficult problem, but the difficulties are considerably increased when we attempt to deal with the ancestry of a people without either literature, history, or recognizable traditions of origin. Such is the case with the aborigines of Australia, whom even the most elementary phases of civilization seem to have passed by. Though much speculation has taken place with regard to the stock from which they have sprung, the question cannot yet be regarded as satisfactorily decided. There are, however, perhaps three points upon which scientists have arrived at something like an agreement:—(a) That the various tribes have a common ancestry; (b) that the original race arrived by immigration, though from what particular direction is uncertain; (c) that since the original inroad there has been admixture by alien immigration from some second source.

One of the most important factors in discussing the question of common origin is the examination of language, and those who have made a careful analysis of the dialects spoken agree that the aborigines throughout the whole of Australia are traceable to a common ancestry.

The first investigator to remark this was Sir George Grey, than whom no one is more fitted to speak upon the subject with authority. After some years spent in the collection of information he formed the opinion that no matter what might be the apparent differences between the tribes in various districts of the continent, their common origin and fundamental unity must be admitted on the following grounds:—