centre as the Tasmanians, namely, the "sunken continent," and therefore, in their emigrations, established themselves directly upon the south-western part of Australia, and possibly after the separation of Tasmania from it.
According to this author, the Tasmanians were then isolated for several or many thousand years from the world's progress, and he feels "wonder that the Tasmanians retained the speech and form of man and the strength of human thought, the power of human love."
Professor Giglioli,[1] in the conclusion to his work on the Tasmanians, regards them as being Australians with the hair of Papuans, retaining, but in a primitive form, the habits and customs of the former, or, to speak more correctly, as being the descendants of an earlier black race with woolly hair who were settled in the continent of New Holland. The Tasmanians were the last remainder of that race, having been preserved through the isolation of their country.
He says, in conclusion, that the Tasmanians were members of the great Papuan family, and owed their inferiority to the complete state of isolation in which they had existed since a very remote epoch.
The Rev. William Ridley[2] appears to have held the view, although he states it with some hesitation, that the Australians passed from New Guinea, from island to island, to Cape York. Having found their way onwards to the south and west, the necessities and jealousies of the numerous families that followed them forbade their return.
Mr. H. Ling Roth,[3] in his most excellent work on The Aborigines of Tasmania, discusses the views of M. Topinard, Professor Huxley, Professor Friedrich Müller, MM. de Quatrefages and Haura, Dr. Garson, Mr. Barnard Davis, and other authorities, as to the origin of the Tasmanians. He says that it is quite impossible to define the race to which they were most closely allied, but that a comparison of their physical and mental characteristics tends to the
