Related in certain physical characters to the pygmy Negritoes, although not of pygmy proportions[368], were the aborigines of Tasmania, but their racial affinities are much disputed. Huxley thought they showed some resemblance to the inhabitants of New Caledonia and the Andaman Islands, but Flower was disposed to bring them into closer connection with the Papuans or Melanesians. The leading anthropologists in France do not accept either of these views. Topinard states that there is no close alliance between the New Caledonians and the Tasmanians, while Quatrefages and Hamy remark that "from whatever point of view we look at it, the Tasmanian race presents special characters, so that it is quite impossible to discover any well-defined affinities with any other existing race." Sollas, reviewing these conflicting opinions, concludes that "this probably represents the prevailing opinion of the present day[369]." The Tasmanians were of medium height, the average for the men being 1.661 m. (5 ft. 5-1/2 in.) with a range from 1.548 m. to 1.732 m. (5 ft. 1 in. to 5 ft. 8 in.); the average height for women being 1.503 m. (4 ft. 11 in.) with a range from 1.295 m. to 1.630 m. (4 ft. 3 in. to 5 ft. 4-1/4 in.). The skin colour was almost black with a brown tinge. The eyes were small and deep set beneath prominent overhanging brow-ridges. The nose was short and broad, with a deep notch at the root and widely distended nostrils. The skull was dolichocephalic or low mesaticephalic, with an average index of 75, of peculiar outline when viewed from above. Other peculiarities were the possession of the largest teeth, especially noticeable in comparison with the small jaw, and the smallest known cranial capacity (averaging 1199 c.c. for both sexes, falling in the women to 1093 c.c.). The aboriginal Tasmanians stood even at a lower level of culture than the Australians. At the occupation the scattered bands, with no hereditary chiefs or social organisation, numbered altogether 2000 souls at most, speaking several distinct dialects, whether of one or more stock languages is uncertain. In the absence of sibilants and some other features they resembled the Australian, but were of ruder or less developed structure, and so imperfect that according to Joseph Milligan, our best authority on the subject, "they observed no settled order or arrangement of words in the construction of their sentences, but conveyed in a supplementary fashion by tone, manner, and gesture those modifications of meaning which we express by mood, tense, number, etc.[370]" Abstract terms were rare, and for every variety of gum-tree or wattle-tree there was a name, but no word for "tree" in general, or for qualities, such as hard, soft, warm, cold, long, short, round, etc. Anything hard was "like a stone," round "like the moon," and so on, "usually suiting the action to the word, and confirming by some sign the meaning to be understood."