Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1848-09-01
From The Scientific american.
The Boomerang.

This is the name of a curious instrument
used as an offensive weapon by the blacks of
Australia, and in their hands it performs
most wonderful and magic actions, surprising
our ideas OF possibility, and would be perfect
ly incredulous, were the accounts not certified
by respectable and truthful witnesses. A
late resident Of that strange country, named
VIM. Haygarlh, has published a work in
which he describes some OF the feats per-
formed by the Boomerang. The instrument
itself is a thin curved piece of wood varying
from two to three feet in length and about
two inches broad-one side is slightly round
ed, the other quite fiat. To be thrown it is
held by the right rand with the fat side of
the instrument facing outwards. An Austria
liam black can throw this whimsical weapon
so as to cause it TO describe a complete circle
in the air; or, to give the reader a better idea
of what is meant, he would stand in front of
a tolerably large house, on the grass-plot be-
fore the door, and send his boomerang COM
pletely round the building, from left to right ,
that is to say, it would, upon leaving his hand,
vanish round the right corner, and re-appear-
ing at the left, eventually fall at his feet
The whole circumference of the circle thus
described is frequently not less than two hun
dred and fifty yards and upwards, when hurl-
ed by a strong arm but the wonder lies
wholly in its encircling properties, and not
in the distance TO which it may be sent.
When forcibly thrown, its course is very
rapid, equalling the speed of an arrow for
about fifty yards, until it arrives at the point
where it first begins to alter its course thence
it continues its career at about haIfspeed, and
so gradually flies with diminishing impetus,
until, as usual, it returns to the spot whence
it started. Its flight is not unlike that of a
bird and, occasionally, when great strength
has been exerted, it hovers for a few moments
before it falls to the ground, and, continuing
its rotary motion, remains in other respects
quite stationary, much in the same way as a
humming top when it goes to sleep on the
ground. A deep hurting sound accompanies
its coarse; during the whole of which it re-
wolves with such rapidity as to appear like q
wheel in the air.
BY holding it at the opposite extremity,
so as to bring the flat side on the left hand, a
circle may be described in the other direction,
i. e. from left to right, for the fiat must al ways
be the outer side. But the ~prettiest evolu-
ton it can be made TO perform is the follow
ing:-lt is thrown with a tendency down.
wards upon which, after having gone some
twenty yards, one point of 1t tips the ground,
three times successfully, at intervals Of about
the same distance, rebounding with a sound
like the twang of a harp-string; meanwhile
it still continues its circular course, until, as
before, it returns to the thrower. This feat
is more difficult to accomplish than that OF
sending it through the air, and requires all
the thrower's skill there is one precise dis
lance, and no other, at which it should first
strike the ground, for if it does so too forci-
oily, its progresses wholly arrested and if,
on the other hand, it is not sufficiently de-
pressed and fails 10 come in contact with the
ground, its course is then completely altered /;
for, shortly after passing the place where il
ought to have rebounded, it begins to rise,
and towers up in the air to the height of about
fifty feet, whence it falls down almost per.
pendicularly.