THE ORIGIN OF AUSTRALIA.

Evening Star, Issue 3195, 17 May 1873, Page 3

THE ORIGIN OF AUSTRALIA.

It is the business of philosophers to account for everything ; and Mr A. Dufresne, of tho 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. Tire difference in the animals of the island continent and its aborigines, compared vith other creatures and peoples is proof sufficient for the vivacious Frenchman. The aborigines are descended from another Adam from ho who wedded Eve, and here, he submits, we have a positive proof that the planets are inhabited. On the other hand, Count de Castelnau, of Melbourne, who quotes this author in his Exhibition essay, argues valiantly for the brotherheod of the benighted black. He is tho 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 tho “Aborigines and their Habits and History,” not without a fear that tho ingenious gentleman in question will have a theory of his own, and prove that his proUgfa are either tho lost ten tribes, or the miaring Casaanifes who fled in their panic before Israel, and might well bo 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.