common as the parts of the body, such for instance as the
sun, moon, water, earth, etc. By the accompanying list of words used at
different places to express the same meaning,* it is obvious that those
to which I have alluded are common to the natives both in the
south-eastern and south-western portions of Australia; while no such
resemblance can be traced between these words and any in the language
spoken by natives on the northern coast. Now from this greater uniformity
of language prevailing throughout the length of this large island, and
the entire difference at much less distance latitudinally, it may perhaps
be inferred that the causes of change in the dialect of the aborigines
have been more active on the northern portion of Australia than
throughout the whole extent from east to west. The uniformity of dialect
prevailing along the whole southern shore seems a fact worthy of notice
as connected with any question respecting the origin of the language, and
whether other people or dialects have been subsequently introduced from
the northern or terrestrial portion of the globe. These words although
few may be useful to philologists as specimens of the general language
and, as the names of parts of the body can be obtained by travellers from
men the most savage by only pointing to each part, comparisons may be
thus extended to the natives of other shores.

(*Footnote. See Appendix 2.1)

I am not aware that any affinity has been discovered, at least in single
words, between the Australian language and that of the Polynesian
people;* but with very slight means of comparison I may perhaps be
excused for noticing the resemblance of Murroa, the name of the only
volcanic crater as yet found in Australia to Mouna-roa, the volcano of
the Sandwich Islands; and that tao, the name of the small yam or root
eaten by Australians, is similar to taro, the name of thirty-three
varieties of edible root and having the same meaning in the Friendly and
Society Isles and also in the Sandwich Islands. (See Cook's Voyages and
Polynesian Researches by William Ellis.)

(*Footnote. Mr. Threlkeld has detected in it a similarity of idiom to the
languages of the South Sea islanders and the peculiarity of a dual number
common to all. See his Australian Grammar, Sydney 1834.)

HABITS OF THOSE OF VAN DIEMEN'S LAND THE SAME.

The natives of Van Diemen's Land, the only inhabited region south of
Australia, are said to have been as dark as the negro