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great interest in the history of man have been elicited from a 

 comparison of languages, written and spoken. An important 

 point in such an investigation is the relationship observable 

 in geographical terms, connecting tribes and peoples now 

 widely apart or totally extinct. 



Since the names of places in every language are applied 

 upon the same great principles, one would not expect to find 

 many terms entering into the composition of them ; nor indeed 

 are there many. In every language, the most prominent 

 Natural Objects (such as mountain, river, plain, wood, 

 island, lake, spring,) and the most necessary Artificia^l ones, 

 (church, fort, house, bridge, town, enclosure,) are interwoven 

 with those of Common Qualities, (age, number, height, 

 colour, size, position, direction,) and the whole effect is pro- 

 duced. Now the number of such words, multiplied by the 

 number of existing languages would give a result quite start- 

 ling : or even if multiplied by the number of languages which 

 it is desirable to know, the product would be a very large one. 

 "We are to bear in mind, however, that many languages are 

 cognate y or of the same origin ;^s the Italian, Spanish, Portu- 

 guese, and French, which are all directly derived from the 

 Latin. Hence, the geographical terms in several languages 

 are coincident or very nearly so ; and accordingly, instead of 

 being confounded with a multitude of details, we easily grasp 

 a few simple general principles. 



Prom the simplicity of the classification, a curious result 

 follows. When we examine the words under any general 

 head, as mountains or lakes, towns or churches, colours or 

 numbers, we find that several sets of words exist, of identical 

 or nearly identical meaning. TheSe are occasionally only 

 different names for the same place, translated from one lan- 

 guage to another by the different classes of people who have 

 visited it. In general, however, they are the names of places 

 that have no local connexion ; and are found in parts of the 



