THE ORIGIN OF AUSTRALIA.

Dunstan Times, Issue 579, 23 May 1873, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE ORIGIN OF AUSTRALIA.

It is the business of philosophers to account for everything ; an'l Mr A. Dufresne, of the Geographical Society of France, has acounted for Australia. In the last volume of the society, he submits his reasons for concluding that Australia was an aerolite a sort of moon—which having, by some unknown cause, deviated from its course, struck the terrestrial globe, and became one of its ingredient parts.' The difference in the animals of the island coutinent and its aborigines, compared with other creatures and peoples is proof sufficient for the vivacious Frenchman. The aborigines arc descended from another Adam from ho who wedded Eve, and here, he submits, we have a positive proof that the planets arc inhabited. On the other hand, Count de Castelnau, of Melbourne, who quotes this author in bis Exhibition essay, argues valiantly for the brotherhood of the benighted black. He is the remnant, the Count believes, of vast populations which once covered the greater part of Asia and Europe. We shall look to Mr Brough Smyth to sum up, in his forthcoming volume on the “ Aborigines and their Habits and History,” not without a fear that the ingenious gentleman in question will have a theory of his own, and prove that his 2>rolcijis are either the lost ten tribes, or the mis-ing Caxaanites who fled in their panic before Israel, and might well be supposed not to stop till they got to the Otway, as the most remote spot from Jewish civilisation. In practice, it is important to observe that the settlers have recognised the Australian black as the lineal descendant of Old Adam, and one of the few scriptural injunctions they have followed is to cast him out utterly.