Australia is a land of survivals. Its geological antiquity and its isolation from other great land areas account for this fact. The Australian aborigine is a race apart. He has no near relationship to any of the other groups of mankind. The settled opinion is that he comes of a very early offshoot of the human race, representing, except for his development in response to local conditions, a more generalized type of man than is to be found in any other part of the world. His isolation, with its attendant lack of normal stimulus, has resulted in the emphasis of two characteristics which are very important in considering his nature. The first of these is that he remains in a very state. It is not necessary to interpret the word primitive as indicating a low grade of being. From the point of view of adaptability to environment it is probable that the Australian has reached a higher level of adjustment than many other native races. But he has not developed those qualities of intelligence or organization which are the outcome of interracial conflict and competition. The long isolation of the Australian has had the further effect of so ingraining his characteristic nature as to make him particularly resistant to change. Western civilization has no meaning for him; once separated from his native haunts he usually languishes-he has not the capacity for adaptation. This is, of course, not necessarily true of the half-caste, and may not be true of every full-blooded aborigine. But of the race as a whole it is true to an unusual degree. The Tasmanian race, now unhappily extinct, was not akin to the Australian. It is generally agreed that the Tasmanians are the descendants of a Negroid race which entered Australia from the North, and at one time was spread over the whole continent, including Tasmania, which was at that time connected with the mainland by a land bridge. At a later stage came the present Australians, who are preDravidian in origin, and they occupied in their turn the whole continent, absorbing or annihilating the earlier inhabitants. Tasmania, being by that time separated from the mainland, became a sanctuary for the earlier race, who retained to the last their Negroid characteristics. Physically the Australian is striking.