238 PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 



immense salt steppes, and the very slight elevation of the surface 

 of the soil, as far as the Baltic, and the Gulph of Archangel. 

 The facts announced, and the arguments they originate, are, 

 in themselves, of considerable interest, but too numerous for 

 detail in an abstract. They shew, however, in the aggregate, 

 sufficient reasons for the comparative tardiness of the popula- 

 tion of the North and West of Europe. 



Having noticed the three great routes through Asia, already 

 mentioned, and the subsequent progress by divided columns up 

 the affluents of the Black Sea, into Poland to the Vistula; up 

 the Danube to the Rhine, and across the Bosphorus into Greece 

 and Illyria; further also, the routes by sea on both sides of the 

 Mediterranean ; the lecturer pointed out the degrees and quality 

 of civilization and the religious opinions, the different tribes ac- 

 quired from contact with Scythic and Semetic races, and how 

 these many different combinations are in some cases known, and 

 in others presumed to have affected the tongues originally spoken 

 in Europe. 



In this view he named Scythic the tongue supposed to have 

 been aboriginally spoken by the Gothic Slavonian, Indo German, 

 and Teutonic nations, in dialects more or less different from each 

 other, but belonging to the common stock : of these the Sanscrit 

 is the oldest written form; and the 40 Pracrit dialects of India 

 Jiving languages. Such also was the Meso Gothic, and Anglo 

 Saxon ; the living languages being all the tongues of the North, 

 connected with German and Slavonic. 



The next great parent tongue he named Semetic, and includes 

 the old Chaldaic, Syriac, Hebrew, Arabian, Amharic, and even 

 Copthic. 



The third, belonging to the race chiefly under consideration 

 he denominated Gomerian, including the tongues spoken by na- 

 tions that preceded the Celtae, as well as the various dialects of 

 Keltic : of these the Welsh, Irish, Galic, and Armorican are living 

 representatives. 



All words common to these three great ramifications of lan- 

 guages he considered as belonging to the original languages of 

 the Caucasian man, and therefore he named Caucasian. 



Allowing for the interposition of a few dialects that seem to 

 be independant of any of the above, or that are not sufficiently 

 known, and therefore named by the lecturer aberrant tongues, he 

 considered that we may classify all the dialects of the Gomerian 

 4\nd Semigomerian nations settled in Europe, in a sufficiently 



