A very good copy of this volume from the Ethnological Society of London, notably including an essay by William Augustus Miles on the Aborigines of Sydney, with an accompanying plate depicting some rock carvings.

A very good copy of this volume from the Ethnological Society of London, notably including an essay by William Augustus Miles on the Aborigines of Sydney, with an accompanying plate depicting some rock carvings.

Miles (1798-1851) is rumoured to have been an unacknowledged son of George IV, as the unexpected favour of William IV might be thought to imply. He served for several years as a controversial police commissioner in Sydney, during which time he also took up the study of the Australian Aborigines. His long essay here "on Demigods and Daemonia" is a very early paper on religion, artefacts and language of the Australians, with notes from sources like the First Fleet accounts, Leichhardt, and Lort Stokes of the Beagle. The article includes quite a lot of enthusiastic commentary on the ancient religions of Europe and their apparent relation to Australia, but also has a good deal of first hand comment based on Miles' acquaintance with "Maoroo", of the Botany Bay tribe.

Other interesting papers include: the Reverend J. Inglis, 'A missionary tour in the New Hebrides', presented to Sir George Grey (pp. 53-86); Doctor Arthur Saunders Thomson, an army surgeon stationed in Auckland with the 58th Regiment, 'Observations on the Stature, Weight, Magnitude of chest, and physical strength of the New Zealand race of men', (pp. 123-32); and T.R. Heywood Thomson, 'On a reported infecundity of the "Gins" or Aboriginal females of New Holland, to procreate with a native male after having borne half-caste children to European or White', (pp. 243-47).