ese points are also
extant, and the amount of evidence thus gained clearly establishes that
the several dialects are all derived from a common root.

The labours of Mr. Threlkeld in the vicinity of Hunter's River and Lake
Macquarie enable us to compare the language of that portion of Australia
with those of the other points which we have just considered, and the
result of this comparison also shows that the languages are radically the
same.

TABLES OF EXAMPLES.

The following Tables will give a sufficient number of words common to
those four dialects to show the degree of similarity which exists among
them.

(TABLE OF SUBSTANTIVES.

TABLE OF VERBS.)

VARIATIONS OF DIALECT.

Now before proceeding farther and thus entering upon ground which is very
little known, there are several important circumstances worthy of
consideration. In the vast extent of country which is comprised between
the points embraced in these tables it was to have been expected that
very great variations of dialect would have been found. If we only
reflect upon the differences of dialect existing between the several
counties of England, so limited in extent, how much greater were the
variations to have been reasonably anticipated in a country between two
and three thousand miles across, where an unwritten language is in use,
and where no communication whatever takes place between the inhabitants
of distant portions: moreover in this great extent the vegetation becomes
totally different; birds, reptiles, and quadrupeds inhabit one portion of
the continent which are unknown in another, and external nature
altogether changes. Under these circumstances many new words must have
been invented, and new terms must constantly have been introduced as the
population spread across the country, and as those who were constantly
pushing on from the outskirts of the inhabited parts ceased to
communicate with the districts which had been first peopled, these
changes must have been unknown to the original inhabitants of the
continent and to those of their descendants who successively inhabited
their territory.

If for instance this country was first peopled from the north or the
tropical parts, the most remote inhabitants of the southern portions must
have invented terms for snow, ice, hail, intense cold, etc., as well as
for every tree and bird, for every fish and reptile, and for every
insect; all the compound and comparative terms derived from these, as
w