other improvement. When I ask old and experienced navigators, why we should not have the compass card to traverse on its needle, so that after taking an azimuth it may be set and kept to the true North? The usual reply is," Why, indeed!" I can see no reason why masters of vessels should not daily as punctually set their compass cards to the true North as they do their clocks to apparent time. And the more especially as all charts are constructed on the pole of the world. At present a compass bearing (and most absurdly we can take no other) has to be reduced to the true bearing before it can be laid off on any chart; there may be a shrivelled skeleton imp of a compass card placed at hand upon the chart, but there is no reason for its continuance, since what was once compass bearing, is no longer so; a correction being, under the present system, necessary before we can in general so dispose of local attraction as to arrive even at terrestrial deviation.

In proposing therefore my remedy for this and other difficulties of the compass, may I not be permitted to affirm that by the spherograph the compass is conquered? I have long and anxiously considered the evils which beset the whole study and practice of navigation, and having in my own humble way brought such considerations to bear on the interests of this great commercial country, I am resolved to prepare a few practical and methodical hints on the study of navigation. The great changes which a few years have introduced, place the question of naval education in a state of transition. Gratified should I be, (I cannot say proud from a conviction of my own inability to do justice to such a subject,) but pleased should I be could I ultimately succeed in rendering permanent assistance to navigators.

With this strong feeling, I may possibly be allowed to state without delay that the spherograph greatly simplifies great circle sailing. At present this sailing is confined to a few of the most intelligent ship captains of clippers, which less need acceleration, and these are almost the only vessels benefitted by it. Nay: I have been assured by more than one ship master, that in general practice it is found of little utility, from the difficulty attending its use. The difficulty I have found to exist in the systems at present recommended. Terms are used, which, however appropriate in themselves, are not understood by seamen. And men dislike working generally as it were blindfold, neither knowing the "why" nor the "wherefore."

And as to composite sailing, I have had difficulty in convincing some captains that Towson's admirable method is so really meritorious. But does not this furnish a proof that nautical education generally is defective? A little more light, and the value of composite sailing would be manifest to every man who crosses the equator; and voyages might be shortened, and vast expences to the British merchant saved, if captains of ships had facilities for study such as the spherograph offers.

It has long been obvious that great circle sailing was only denied to the multitude from an inability in them to project the great circle

course.

To

As in azimuth formulæ have been proposed, and highly ingenious tables constructed, yet it remained inherently a sphere question, and want of spherical knowledge rendered these means obscure. use them really was not difficult; but, even in this age of progression, ignorance of the principles was often a bar to their use. Now, with

shadow of unfriendly or depreciating feeling towards those who have really done so much and so disinterestedly for the mariner, I may be allowed to say that by my spherograph the whole question of great circle and composite sailing is so simplified that not only "passed Captains" but the merest tyro in navigation may in it see the whole "why and wherefore." Independent of its being a system in itself, it fully explains, in terms known to all who study navigation, the groundwork of all that has been written on the subject. I have intruded, however, so far on the limits prescribed me that I must beg the favour of being allowed to defer to your next number an explanation of my most simple system of great circle and composite sailings.

I have, &c.,

S. M. SAXBY.

THE ABORIGINES OF AUSTRALIA. By James Browne, Toronto. Read before the Canadian Institute, February 16th, 1856.

In the following paper I purpose attempting to give an account of the aborigines of Australia, a subject not without interest to us as relating to a people situated in a remote portion of the British Empire, but on whom its civilisation has produced no beneficent influences. On them it is effecting, even more rapidly than on the aborigines of this continent, the fatal effects which appear inevitably to flow from the contact of savage with highly civilized life, and these notes accordingly refer to a people who are fast disappearing from the earth. Imperfect as they are, they may possess some value from the fact that they are in no degree derived from books, but embody the results of personal observations of the natives of Australia, concerning whom few among the numerous writers on the great southern region of British colonization appear to feel the slightest interest, or to have thought their habits and characteristics worthy of remark.

It was my fortune to pass the greater part of my boyhood at King George Sound, a settlement on the western coast of Australia. There the aborigines were my companions and playfellows, and thus the following account embodies facts which came under my own observation, or were related to me by the natives themselves. It narrates principally the result of my observations on those with whom I sojourned; but it may be added that the manners and customs of the aborigines of the western, southern, and eastern coasts of Australia vary so little that a description of one may answer for all. Of those inhabiting the

northern coast I could speak only from report. They are a still more savage race, with whom little intercourse has hitherto been held, and they appear to present a striking contrast in some respects to the natives of other regions of the Australian continent.

Referring as I do to a people rapidly becoming extinct, it will not detract from any value these notes may possess, that they do not embody a description of Australia of the present time, with its wonderful gold fields, and its vast and multifarious population gathered seemingly from nearly every country of the known world; but they refer to Australia as it was twenty years since, when Melbourne and Port Phillip were inhabited only by the savage, when South Australia, as a colony, was unknown, and Western Australia was only beginning to be settled by the white man.

The entrance to the noble basin of Princess Royal Harbour, on which the town of Albany in Western Australia stands, is formed by two high and rocky hills about half a mile apart, and here, some twenty years since, on a bright morning in the month of May (which be it remembered is the depth of an Australian winter,) I obtained my first sight of the aborigines of the southern continent. The first impression produced by a sight of the grinning native in the bow of the harbour master's boat-black as coal, but with a pair of keen sparkling eyes, and a row of teeth disproportionately prominent from the large size of his gaping mouth,-was that we were looking on a baboon or some strange creature of that new world, rather than on a human being. A short cloak of kangaroo skins, the invariable costume of the natives, as we afterwards found, was his only garment, reaching about half way down his thighs, and exposing the lower limbs, which were disproportionately small and shapeless. His arms were sinewy though lean, but as is invariably the case with the Australian savage, larger and better developed in proportion to his general figure, than the meagre shapeless lower limbs. He was, as I ascertained, about thirty years of age, but looked much older, of low stature and slight figure. His hair, which was thick and curly, grew far down over a low and poorly developed forehead. His eyes were small, deep-set and lively; his nose delicate though somewhat flattened, and his mouth large and protruding. Such was Wan-e-war, the first of the aborigines of Australia it was my fortune to see, and no uǹmeet type of his degraded and doomed race. We soon had further opportunities for observing the aboriginal owners of the land in which we proposed to sojourn.

Towards dark on the day of our landing, we heard a great shouting and jabbering amongst the natives, from which we were led to believe that they were preparing for some special festivities. The men were collected round their fires very busy in "getting themselves up,"— plastering their locks plentifully with a pomatum made of grease and red ochre, and beautifying their persons in a variety of other ways. All this preparation was for a corroberry or native dance, which they intended to have in honour of the arrival of the strangers. Accordingly, soon after dark, they assembled round the large fire kindled for

the purpose near our dwelling, and the proceedings of the evening commenced. The cloaks of the dancers, instead of being thrown over the shoulders, as usually worn by them, were fastened round their middles, leaving their bodies completely bare, which, with their faces, were painted in the most grotesque manner with red ochre, and shining with grease. Some had bunches of feathers or flowers stuck in their hair, while others completed their head-dress with the tail of the wild dog. One or two had a small bone of the kangaroo passed through a hole in the cartilage of the nose; all carried their spears and wameras; and as they thus stood gathered round the fire, which threw a vivid glare on their greasy and shining bodies, the effect was truly picturesque and savage.

Those who intended to take a part in the dance ranged themselves on one side of the fire; on the other side sat the old men and the women and children. The corroberry commenced by the dancers breaking out into a sort of mournful chant, in which the old men and the women occasionally joined. The whole burden of the song consisted in the words "Yunger a bia, mati, mati," which they repeated over and over again, beginning in a loud and shrill tone, the voice gradually dying away as they proceeded, until at last so low and soft was it, as to be hardly distinguishable from the breeze which rustled amongst the bushes.

Whilst thus chanting, the dancers remained in a bending posture, and kept time to their voices by lifting their feet with a sort of jerking step from the ground, and at the same time pulling the two long ends of their beards through their hands. Suddenly they would change their music into a loud "Haugh heigh, haugh heigh, haugh heigh," whilst they clashed their spears and wameras together, and stamped their feet with full force against the ground; then drawing themselves up with a sudden jerk, a loud and startling Garra-wai" was shouted. Then again they would resume their first movement, but in double quick time, the whole rank now moving quickly up and down side-ways, shoulder to shoulder, now going round in a circle, and all to the same music, and with the same stamping steps.

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Tiring of this, the sport was changed to the " Kangaroo dance." This dance is very similar to that already described, but with the difference-that, in the midst of the uproar, one of the men came bounding and jumping like a kangaroo between the dancers and the fire; this movement put a sudden stop to the dancing, and one of the party started off as if in pursuit of the game, the two then went through the whole proceeding of hunting down and spearing the kangaroo, which being at length accomplished they all once more joined in the dance, and in the midst of the uproar, the stamping of feet, the clashing together of spear and wamera, and their shouting and yelling, the fire died away, darkness covered the scene, and the entertainments of the evening were brought to a close. And thus also closed the first

day of my sojourn in Western Australia.

The country in the immediate vicinity of King George Sound-an arm of the sea on the western coast of Australia-is inhabited by four

tribes of the aborigines. These are the Murray, the Weal, the Cockatoo and the Kincannup. In saying, however, that this part of Australia is inhabited but by four tribes, it may be necessary to explain that this distinction of people is altogether that of the natives themselves, and the four divisions here mentioned are applied to the relative position of that portion of the country occupied. Thus, for instance, all those natives inhabiting the country to the westward of Albany are called Murray men; those to the northward, Weal men; and those to the eastward, Cockatoo men. Each, therefore, although a distinct division, can hardly be looked upon as one single tribe, but rather as a combination of many small tribes, inhabiting a territory lying in a certain position.

The Murray tribe, the most numerous of all, occupies a territory exceeding in extent that of any of the rest: that is, the whole of the coast running some 300 miles from King George Sound westward to the Murray River in the Swan River Colony.

The natives belonging to the Weal tribe wander over the country to the northward of Albany. They are, perhaps, not so numerous as the Murray tribe, but they are, I think, physically stronger, and of greater importance in the estimation of the aborigines generally.

The district of the Cockatoo tribe extends a considerable distance along the sea-coast to the eastward of Albany, and runs also from the coast far back into the interior.

The Kincannup tribe inhabits the country in the immediate vicinity of Albany. It is a small and weak tribe, and, in comparison with the others, can hardly be looked upon as a distinct one. Kincannup is the native name for that district upon which the town of Albany stands. The natives who generally stayed in and about that settlement, style themselves, therefore, Kincannup men; but they may be regarded, I think, as merely a branch or family of the Weal tribe, those inhabiting the country to the northward of the Sound. Be this as it may, many causes have combined to extirpate the Kincannup people. The white man has driven the kangaroo from the native's grounds; he has therefore to depend principally upon the colonists for a scanty means of existence. These and other causes, which I shall notice hereafter, have rendered this tribe nearly extinct. When we left the colony, they could not probably muster more than from twenty to thirty souls.

Although of the same stock and possessing the same characteristics as a people, it is not difficult to distinguish the individuals of the different tribes by their general appearance, which corresponds in some measure with the nature of the country they inhabit. The men of the Murray tribe, for instance, are short, strong, and hardy looking fellows. Their country, lying on the coast, is scarcely more than a barren waste, with little shelter from the violent storms that sweep over the exposed shores of this part of Australia. From this cause, the kangaroo, which is almost the only animal food these people have, is not so plentiful in the district as farther in the interior, and thus from the insufficient supply of animal food, the people of this tribe do not present so