What I claim to have done is, to have brought together the various facts and phenomena they have accumulated; to have set forth the hypotheses by which they account for them, or the results to which the evidence clearly points; to have judged between conflicting opinions and theories; and lastly, to have combined the results of the various widely-separated departments of science, and to have shown how they bear upon the great problem which I have here endeavoured, in some slight degree, to elucidate. As such a large body of facts and arguments from distinct sciences have been here brought...

This book presents the History of New Guinea and its ihabitants. "Immediately north of Australia, and separated from it at Torres Straits by less than a hundred miles of sea, is the largest island on the globe - New Guinea, a country of surpassing interest, whether as regards its natural productions or its human inhabitants, but which remains to this day less known than any accessible portion of the earth's surface... It was discovered in 1511, even earlier than Australia; and from that time Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, French, and English vessels have continually passed along its coasts. Most...