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 CHAPTER I

INQUIRY CONCERNING THE ORIGIN OF THE AUSTRALIAN RACE

work, Eaglehawk and Crow, dealt with the Australian aborigines as a whole. In it I discussed the larger questions of their origin and distribution, and made a survey of the languages which embraced an original classification. My work obtained, for the most part, as favourable a reception as I could have expected.

A difficulty I had to face was to find a term which might suitably include Papuans, Melanesians, autochthonous Australians and Tasmanians. Differences of nomenclature among previous writers embarrassed me, some Rh