616 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XV, 



thus investigating the origin of names we not only recover the history of 

 the name itself, hut often ascertain also interesting facts respecting the 

 object which it indicates. As an example of one mode in which a name 

 can become a historical record I would refer to a place in Cumberland 

 known as Torpenhowe Hill. The hill stands, I believe, in quite an 

 isolated position, and forms such a very marked feature in the landscape, 

 that the inhabitants of the immediate neighbourhood would be quite 

 justified in terming it the hill ; there is no other thereabouts. Such was, 

 at any rate, the name given to it by a Celtic tribe which at one time 

 occupied that part of the country, for " tor " means a hill or eminence 

 and still conveys that meaning in Devon and Cornwall, the tors of 

 Dartmoor being well known. These Celts were in time succeeded by 

 others, who spoke a somewhat different dialect, and to whom the term 

 " tor " as designating the hill was not descriptive. They did not 

 understand its meaning ; and, as it was to them merely a conven- 

 tional term for the locality, or as we should say a proper name, they 

 added to it the word which meant a hill in their dialect, viz., 

 " pen ", a component part of the names of many of the Welsh 

 hills, e.g., Pen-maen-maur, and called the place "tor-pen ". Later 

 on the country was occupied by the Danes, by whom " torpen " 

 was regarded as merely a proper name ; and, ignorant of its 

 meaning, they added to it their own word for hill, viz., " howe " and it 

 became " torpen-howe ". After them came the Saxons, to whom 

 " howe " conveyed as little meaning as ' tor ', or ' pen ', and therefore to 

 the Danish name, as they found it, they affixed their own word ' hill ', 

 making it " Torpenhowe-hill ". So it stands for the present, the name 

 thus meaning in reality hill-hill-hill-hill. Fortunately the Normans let 

 it remain, and we are spared from having to call the place " Torpenhowe 

 hill-mount ". You will see that the name contains within itself the 

 record of four successive occupations of that part of the country ; and 

 we require no other to tell us that Cumberland has been overrun in 

 turn by Celt, Dane and Saxon. There is another method by which a 

 name can be made to disclose something beyond its own history, viz., 

 by comparing it with its forms in other cognate languages, and as- 

 certaining in how many it exists as a native word. The forms are 

 often very unlike each other ; but there are certain etymological rules 

 which enable us to affirm with confidence the identity of words bearing 

 so little outward resemblance as our own " five" and the French " cinq". 



