Item 03: 'The Aborigines of Australia. A Lecture by Wm. Ridley M.A.', 14 September 1864. - Page 14

language, the aboriginies of Queensland, of this

Colony, of South and of Western Australia, bear  

unmistakeable resemblances.   Then the wide

divergence of the Australians from all other nations

indicates the length of their separation from the  

rest of mankind.   From the surest of all ancient

histories we learn that about 4000 years ago the  

speech of mankind was confounded, and their

combination to defeat the Divine plan by clustering  

about the plain of [Shinar?] was overthrown.   Then  

to the north, the west, the south and the East, the  

peoples went forth to find new homes, and it

may be that from that early period the race

now calling themselves Murri, or Djan, or

Mial, agreeing  Î› together in language and in disposition,

and averse to the  Î› regular labour and incipient refinements

of other races, were borne onwards by their

own roving temperament and by the hostility

of those who followed them, and as the foamy  

crest of the wave flowed earthward before the