er considerably from either of them. The same
circumstances take place with regard to their rites and customs; but as
this appears rather to belong to the question of the means by which this
race was distributed over so extensive a tract of country, I will not now
enter into it, but merely adduce sufficient evidence to prove that a
language radically the same is spoken over the whole continent.

If then we start from Perth in Western Australia, following the coast in
a southerly direction, it will be found that between Perth and King
George's Sound a common language is spoken, made up of several dialects,
scarcely differing from one another in any material points and gradually
merging into the dialects of these two places, as the points considered
are nearer to one or the other.

The principal causes of difference between the dialects of these two
places are, 1st, that at King George's Sound the terminating syllable of
all names is dropped; and 2nd, that all verbs, with a very few
exceptions, end in gur, instead of the varying termination which is given
to them at Perth. Any person who can speak the Perth dialect will, by
observing these two rules, be able to converse freely with the natives of
King George's Sound.

(TABLE OF EXAMPLES TO ILLUSTRATE THIS DIFFERENCE OF DIALECTS.)

From these examples it will be seen that the King George's Sound dialect
is the simplest of the two; and indeed I am inclined to believe that the
dialect there spoken is more simple than that in use at any other portion
of the continent.

If we now proceed to Adelaide in South Australia we still find the same
language spoken, but the dialect here is considerably softened; the hard
g of Perth is exchanged for k, and b becomes p and w. Many of the nouns
take -anga as a termination, and the verbs take -andi and -endi. This
addition of soft terminations and a general sweetness of sound appear to
be the peculiar characteristics of the Adelaide dialect. No large
vocabulary of this language has yet been published, but one-eighth of the
words known as belonging to the Perth dialect have been found also in
that of Adelaide; we may therefore fairly conclude that when the latter
language is better known a still greater degree of identity will be found
to exist.

Natives from several parts of the Murray and Murrumbidgee and from Port
Phillip have been brought into communication with natives from King
George's Sound, scanty vocabularies from some of th