I have seen whether they were left-hand or right-hand. When the blade is very thin, the twist scarcely perceptible, and the section only known by modelling it, and the end to be grasped not marked, it is almost impossible to determine what kind of motion it will have in the air.
If the Wonguim is suspended by a string attached to one end, and if a plumb-line be held over the point of suspension, it will be seen that the line cuts a point at some little distance from the inner curve. This indicates that the centre of gravity is not in the weapon itself. But a centre may be found. By attaching a thin slip of wood to the inner part of a boomerang, and using the point of a needle for a support, the weapon may be balanced and made to rotate freely. It cannot be balanced in any other way.
This discovery, however, is not mine. It was made many years ago by the late Sir Thos. L. Mitchell, and in his "Lecture on the Bomareng-Propeller,"[1] which was read before the Australian Society on the 30th December 1850, this and many other interesting facts connected with the Wonguim are mentioned. He says:—
"Of all the novelties presented by New Holland or New South Wales to the European, the original human inhabitant has always appeared to me by far the most interesting. Could he but tell us his history! What may be gathered from his language? Is there anything occult amongst his coradjes (or priests) handed down by tradition? Or can we learn anything from his arts, seeing how simple and yet efficient his means and appliances are? Nature alone, or his Maker, must have taught him these when the Australian man first began to exist. How ancient, then, may not these weapons be? So few in number, yet so efficient! The spear and bomareng are available either in war or the chase, although the club seems chiefly intended for warlike purposes. The missiles are nicely adapted to the resistance of fluids and the laws of gravitation; even in the form of clubs the centre of gravity seems to have been most fully considered.
But it is in the use of such missiles and clubs that these children of Nature show how well they know her laws. By means of the Wammerah, or throwing-stick, the spear is thrown with much greater momentum, and of course increased velocity. The angular club, the rotary shield, the elastic handle of the stone-hatchet, all appear very original, but yet strictly consistent with whatever science teaches, and not susceptible of improvement by anything to be learnt at colleges. The bomareng is one of the most remarkable of these missiles.
Its flight through the air, from the hand of an Australian native, seems in strict obedience to his will. In its return, after a very varied course, to the foot of the thrower, this weapon seems so extraordinary that a Vice-President of the Royal Society, about twelve years ago, observed to me 'that its path through the air was enough to puzzle a mathematician.'[2]
- ↑ See report in the Sydney Morning Herald, Saturday, 11th January 1851.
- ↑ The following notice of another lecture on the same subject, delivered by Sir Thomas Mitchell, appeared in the Athenæum of 10th December 1853, p. 1482:—
"Origin, History, and Description of the Boomerang-Propeller: A lecture, delivered at the United Service Institution, by Lieut.-Col. Sir Thomas L. Mitchell. 'Some sixteen years ago, on his return
