146 COSMOS. 



At the northeustern extremity of the Black Sea a wile field 

 was also opened to ethnology. Astonishment was felt at the. 

 multiplicity of languages among the different races,* and the 

 necessity for skillful interpreters (the first aids and rough in- 

 struments in a comparative study of languages) was keenly 

 felt. The intercourse established by barter and trade was 

 carried from the Mceotic Gulf, then supposed to be of very 

 vast extent, over the Steppe where the central Kirghis horde 

 now pasture their flocks, through a chain of the Scythio-Sco- 

 lotic tribes of the Argippseans and Issedones,t whom I regard 

 as of Indo-Germanic origin, to the Arimaspes on the northern 

 declivity of the Altai Mountains, who possessed large treasures 

 in gold. I Here, therefore, we have the ancient realm of the 



* Cramer, De Siudiis qncB veteres ad aliarum gentium contiderint Lin- 

 guas, 1844, p. 8 and 17. Tlie ancient Colchians appeal' to have beeu 

 identical with the tribe of the Lazi (Lazi, gentes Colchorum, Piin., vi.^ 

 4; the Aai^ot of Byzantine writers); see V^ater (Professor in Kasan), 

 Der Argo7iautenzug ans den Quellen dargestellt, 1845, Heft. !., s, 24; 

 Heft, ii., s. 45, 57, und 103. In the Caucasus, the names Alani (Alane- 

 thi, for the land of the Alani), Ossi, and Ass may still be heard. Ac- 

 cording to the investigations begun with a truly philosophic and philo- 

 logical spirit by George Rosen in the Valleys of the Caucasus, the lau 

 guage spoken by the Lazi possesses remains of the ancient Colchiaii 

 idiom. The Iberian and Grussic family of languages includes the La- 

 zian, Georgian, Suanian, and Mingrelian, all belonging to the group of 

 the Indo-Germanic languages. The language of the Osse'n bears a great' 

 er affinity to the Gothic than to the Lithuanian. 



t On tho relationship of the Scythians (Scolotes or Sacfe), Alani; 

 Goths, Massageta}, and the Yueti of the Chinese historians, see Klapi'oth, 

 in the commentary to the Voyage dit Comte Potocki, t. i,, p. 129, as 

 well as my Asie Centrale, t. i., p. 400 ; t. ii., p. 252. Procopius him 

 self says very definitely {De Bello Gctkico, iv., 5, ed. Bonn, 1833, vol 

 ii., p. 476). that the Goths were fo'-irworly called Scythians. Jacob 

 Grimm, in his recently-published work, Ueher Jornandes, 1846, s. 21, 

 has shown the identity of the Gette and the Goths. The opinion of Nie- 

 buhr (see his Uniersuchungen uber die Geten iind Sarmaten. in his Kleine 

 Historische und Philologische Schrifien, Ite Sammlung, 1828, s. 362, 

 364, und 395), that the Scythians of Herodotus belong to the family of 

 the Mongolian tribes, appears the less probable, since these tribes, 

 partly under the yoke of the Chinese, and partly under that of the Ha- 

 kas or Kirghis {Xspx'ic ^^ Menander), still lived, far in the east of Asia, 

 round Lake Baikal, in the beginning of the thirteenth century. He- 

 rodotus distinguishes also the bald-headed Argippaeans (iv., 23) from the 

 Scythians; and if the first-named are characterized as " tlat-nosed,' 

 they have, at the same time, a " long chin," which, according to my 

 ixperience, is by no means a physiognomical characteristic of the Cal 

 niucs, or of other Mongolian races, but rather of the blonde (German 

 i/.iug?) Usun and Tingling, to whom the Chinese historians ascribe 

 • long horse faces." 



i Ou the dvNelling-place of the Arimaspes, and on the gold trade oi 



