ened, by including in the comparison the weapons, habits,
customs, and traditions, of the various tribes.

[Note 97. I may here refer to a curious mathematical calculation, by
Dr. Thomas Young, to the effect, that if three words coincide in two
different languages, it is ten to one they must be derived in both cases
from some parent language, or introduced in some other manner. "Six words
would give more," he says, "than seventeen hundred to one, and eight near
100,000; so that in these cases, the evidence would be little short of
absolute certainty."--Vestiges of the Creation, p. 302.]

It must be admitted, however, that where the languages spoken by two
tribes, appear to differ greatly, there is no key common to both, or by
which a person understanding one of them thoroughly, could in the least
degree make out the other, although an intimate acquaintance with one
dialect and its construction, would undoubtedly tend to facilitate the
learning of another. A strong illustration of this occurs at Moorunde,
where three dialects meet, varying so much from each other, that no
native of any one of the three tribes, can understand a single word
spoken by the other two, except he has learnt their languages as those of
a foreign people.

The dialects I allude to, are first that of the Murray river, called the
"Aiawong" and which is spoken with slight variations from the Lake
Alexandrina, up to the Darling. Secondly, the "Boraipar," or language of
the natives to the east of the Murray, and which appears in its
variations to branch into that of the south-eastern tribes; and thirdly,
the "Yak-kumban," or dialect spoken by the natives, inhabiting the
country to the north-west and north of the Murray, and which extends
along the range of hills from Mount Bryant to the Darling near Laidley's
Ponds, and forms in its variations the language of the Darling itself;
these tribes meet upon the Murray at Moorunde, and can only communicate
to each other by the intervention of the Aiawong dialect, which the
north-western or south-eastern tribes are compelled to learn, before they
can either communicate with each other, or with the natives of the
Murray, at their common point of rendezvous.

To the tables already given, it is thought desirable to add two of the
dialects, spoken in the country to the eastward of South Australia, and
which were published for the House of Commons, with other papers on the
Aborigines, in August 1844.

[Note: A