A recent work on Australia, by Colonel Grey, furnishes an account of the language of that country, so strikingly corroborative of the views developed above with respect to the origin of the various languages of the other four great Divisions of the Globe, that I have been induced especially to advert to Colonel Grey’s statement in this Section. “The arguments which prove that all the Australian dialects have a common root, are: “1st. A general similarity of sound, and structure of words, in the different portions of Australia, as far as yet ascertained. “2d. The recurrence of the same word with the same signification; to be traced, in many instances, round the entire continent, but undergoing, of course, in so vast an extent of country, various modifications. “3d. The same names of natives occurring frequently at totally opposite portions of the continent. Now, in all parts of it which are known to Europeans, it is ascertained that the natives name their children from any remarkable circumstance which may occur soon after their birth; such being the case, an accordance of the names of natives is a proof of a similarity of dialect. “The chief cause of the misapprehension which has so long existed with regard to the point under consideration is that the language of the aborigines of Australia _abounds in synonymes_, many of which are, _for a time_, altogether _local_; so that, for instance, the inhabitants of a particular district will use one word for _water_,(85) while those of a neighbouring district will _apply another_, which appears to be a totally different one. But when I found out that in such instances as these both tribes _understood the words which either made use of_, and merely employed another one, from _temporary fashion and caprice_, I felt convinced that the language generally spoken to Europeans by the natives of any _one small district_ could not be considered as a fair specimen of the general language of that part of Australia, and therefore in the vocabulary which I compiled in Western Australia, I introduced words collected from _a very extensive tract of country_. “Again, in getting the names of the parts of the body, &c. from the natives, many causes of error arise, for they have names for almost every minute portion of the human frame: thus, in asking the name for the _arm_, one stranger would get the name for the _upper arm_, another for the _lower arm_, another for the right arm, another for the left arm, &c.; and it therefore seems most probable that in the earlier stages of the inquiry into the nature of the language of this people, these circumstances contributed mainly to the erroneous conclusion, that languages radically different were spoken in remote parts of the continent.