through the great cyclones that are prevalent in those vast

oceans.

But now the question arises whether these Australian blacks could have been descended from the Japanese, they being so unlike them in their personal appearance. The Japanese have oval faces, with rounded foreheads, and their eyes are slightly oblique, whereas this figure in the paper of an Australian represents him with a broad face and a forehead by no means prominent, and eyes perfectly straight. He has a face, I should say from my little observation, intermediate between that of an European and a negro. His lower jaw, however, does not seem to protrude much like that of a negro; but his nose is very broad, like that of the usual negro type. On the other hand his hair and beard are long and copious, both of which features are unlike those of the Japanese. But we know that in Japan there is a race of people, called Inas, who are noted for their abundance of hair, and the Japanese records tell us that they had many encounters in early days with "hairy barbarians." Those people now inhabit the north of Japan; but it is very likely that they were driven out from a wider extent of territory anciently.

It is thought by some that the Japanese early races come from Siberia, as they bear so striking a resemblance to the Eskimo of America and Asia, and that they overcame the Ainos in the North, and the Malays in the South; leaving the more inclement regions finally to the subject Ainos. Be that as it may, the natives of Australia might possibly have descended from the Ainos; and as the Ainos, so far as I am aware, had no written language, they would, on landing in Australia (if they knew the Japanese writing) naturally make a record therein. But while that is possible, there is this against it-that Professor Haddon, who is a very great investigator into the appearances, manners, customs, traditions, and language of the natives in and around New Guinea and Borneo, recently spending a day or two with the Yanaikanna Tribe near Cape York in the far North of Australia, when returning from New Guinea, as I heard him tell at Dover the year before last, and he found that while of Australian build and aspect, they had customs very similar to those of the Papuans,

*Brit. Assoc. Report, 1899, p. 585.

especially in the manner of initiating children into manhood; while they must have spoken a language similar to those of the Papuans, or he would not have understood the explanations in the very short time at his disposal.

So, without mentioning other evidence, we must infer that the immigrants who first peopled Australia must have settled over large tracts of Oceania besides.

Commander HEATH, R.N.-Having lived in Australia for many years and having seen these natives in various parts of the country, from Port Albany, in Western Australia, to the most northern point of Queensland in Torres Strait, and also at Port Essington on the North West Coast, I cannot see the slightest reason for thinking that there is any connection whatever between the Japanese and the Australian natives, or even with the hairy Ainos, the Australian native not being a particularly hairy individual.

The picture that we have before us does not represent the Australian native under normal conditions: I have never seen one so fat as this. Though many of them are well developed, they as a rule have no superfluous flesh about them, and the calf of the leg, which here appears so conspicuously, is generally one of their weakest points, the way in which they often sit being somewhat injurious to its development. They are extremely intelligent and clever as hunters and fishermen, and their perceptive organs are wonderfully developed, no doubt from having for many generations been dependent for their food upon what they could catch. Over a large portion of the country there is nothing on which they can fatten. The few animals that they could catch would not help them much, while the dryness of the climate over a great part of the year prevents their obtaining anything like a liberal supply of vegetable food, which consists principally of the tuber of the wild yam. They have no idea of cultivation of any sort, never living at one spot for any time. The white woman whom we rescued from the natives at Cape York, in H.M.S. Rattlesnake, who had been living with the natives for some five years-during which time she had never seen a white man, and had almost forgotten her own language-gave us to understand that at times they were very short of food, though those living on the coast were better off, as they had fish when they could catch them.

It is curious that the natives distributed over this large continent are so much alike in appearance and characteristics, and yet that the area over which any one tribe has possession is very limited. When some time ago Bishop Thornton read a paper on a somewhat similar subject to the present one, his brother the Archdeacon of Middlesex, who was in the chair, suggested that the drawings found in certain caves in Australia represented Hindoo Buddhist missionaries who had come over on a mission to the natives, but of course it is not improbable that wrecked crews from different parts of the world have reached this coast and have left traces behind them.

The impression that the Australian natives have left on me is, that they were separated from the rest of the world by the convulsion which separated Australia from the Asiatic continent, during the Marsupial period, and that like the Marsupials they have never made any further progress.

Mr. ROUSE.-Would the Japanese or the Inos wear a turban ? I never heard of it.

Commander HEATH.-No; but the Hindoos would.

Mr. ROUSE. It occurred to me that it is more likely that such men came from Java, or one of the islands affected by Hindoo Buddhists' customs.

The SECRETARY.-I think we ought to recollect, in reference to the author of this paper, that that picture undoubtedly represents an Australian. He did not manufacture him, or bring him from another country, or take a photograph of him from another country. He is there and we have to account for it, and he endeavours to account for the appearance of these remarkable figures by their contiguity with Europeans and their habits.

Mr. ROUSE.—I should like to say that this is the first picture I ever saw of an Australian that represented him as a very hairy man indeed, with a bushy head of hair and a bushy beard.

A vote of thanks to the author having been accorded, the SECRETARY then exhibited and explained lantern pictures on the screen illustrating the river beds at the bottom of the ocean. The meeting then adjourned.

ORDINARY GENERAL MEETING.*

DAVID HOWARD, Esq., D.L., F.C.S., IN THE CHAIR.

The Minutes of the last Meeting were read and confirmed.

MESSAGE FROM THE KING.

The SECRETARY (Professor E. HULL, LL.D.).-You will recollect that the Council passed and conveyed a very loyal and dutiful Resolution to the King on his accession to the throne, and their expressions of condolence on the death of Her late Majesty Queen Victoria. I have now received a reply from the Home Secretary:

"Home Office, Whitehall.

"29th March, 1901.

"SIR,

"I am commanded by the King to convey to you hereby His Majesty's thanks for the loyal and dutiful address of the Counci and Members of the Victoria Institute, London, expressing sympathy on the occasion of the lamented death of Her late Majesty Queen Victoria, and congratulations on His Majesty's accession to the throne.

"I am, Sir,

"Your obedient servant,

"THOS. S. RITCHIE.

"To the Secretary of the Victoria Institute.”

* Monday, 1st Apr, 1901.

The following elections were announced :—

LIFE ASSOCIATES:-The Rev. C. E. Sherard and Captain E. G. Farquharson, R.E.

ASSOCIATE:-Louis J. Rosenberg, Esq., LL.B.

HON. CORRESPONDING MEMBER :-Mrs. Tyndall.

The following paper by Joshua Rutland, Esq., on The Maori's place in History," was then read by the Secretary in the absence of the Author :

THE MAORI'S PLACE IN HISTORY. By JOSHUA RUTLAND, Esq.

S far back as we are able to retrace the history of

A mankind by means of written documents or inscrip

tions, we constantly discover certain peoples or nations actively engaged in diffusing their particular arts, customs, and institutions, often violently imposing them on their less powerful, or as they are wont to style them, less civilized contemporaries. At this work of civilization the peoples of Northern Europe and their descendants in other parts of the world now occupy the place which was formerly held by Arabs, Turks, Romans, Greeks, Phoenicians, and a host of others who have either entirely passed away or fallen so far behind the mark as to be numbered by their more progressive neighbours amongst those who require civilizing. Even in places of which no written history has come down to us, or where the art of writing has never been known, we discover evidences of this same law of progress, or facts which it alone can explain. Thus the peopling of Eastern Polynesia, the presence there of foreign cultivated plants and the domestic animals when Europeans first entered the region, as well as the monuments scattered throughout the numerous groups, especially those of Easter Island, can only be accounted for by the existence of a prehistoric people, or peoples, imbued with the same spirit of adventure that