former geological connection of Australia and Tasmania appears to be a generally accepted fact, and that if such be the case, a vast period of time must have elapsed since that connection, allowing for the formation of Bass Strait. He very justly observes that herein lies one of the strongest proofs of man's early existence in the island continent, although trustworthy geological evidence is still wanting as to the approximate date of his first advent in Australia.
Dr. John Fraser has stated his views of the origin of the Australians in the introduction to his work, An Australian Language.[1] He holds that the negroid population of Australia originated in Babylonia, and that it was driven into southern India by the "confusion of tongues" which followed the attempt of Nimrod to establish dominion over his fellows. The overthrow of the Chaldaean monarchy, about 1500 B.C., by Arab tribes drove thousands of Kushites into southern India, where they took refuge in the mountains of the Deccan, and where to the present day there are Dravidian and Kolarian black-skinned and savage races.
The Babylonian Kushites are then supposed to have been driven out of India into the Malay Peninsula, Papua, and Timor by Dravidian tribes who came down from Central Asia. Finally they found their way into Australia.
These conclusions appear to rest mainly, if not altogether, upon philological deductions which also cause the author to argue that the Australians, the Dravidians, Malays, Papuans, Fijians, Samoans, and the New Hebrideans were at one time part of a common stock.
The latest work with which I am acquainted which expresses an opinion as to the derivation of the Australian aborigine is the second edition of Mr. G. W. Rusden's History of Australia.[2]
The author places the original site of the Australian stock among the Deccan tribes of Hindustan, and says that in a prehistoric time some powerful class or race of invaders
