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chief object of this memoir is to trace the formation of the exogamous intermarrying divisions which have been found among so many savage and barbaric tribes of the present day, and to show that what the Hon. Lewis H. Morgan calls the Punaluan family, with the Turanian system of kinship, logically results from them. The Australian classes are especially valuable for this purpose, because they give us what seem to be the earliest stages of development.

To the gentlemen who were good enough to furnish me with information concerning the tribes whose customs are within their knowledge, I am under deep obligation. Their names will be found in connection with such of the facts supplied by them as I have had occasion to use.

My special thanks are due to the courteous editor of the Australasian, who published several of my letters of inquiry in that ably-conducted journal, and thereby gained for me some of my most valued correspondents. Above all, it is to the publication of those letters that I owe the help of my friend and fellow-worker, Mr, Alfred W. Howitt, F.G.S.

As it has come in my way to question more than one of the views advanced by Sir John Lubbock in his "Origin of Civilization," it is only fair to call attention to the fact that my remarks are based upon the second edition of that