482 Lr, Davies on the origin of the name * Canada,^ 



name, derived from ca (here) and nada (nothing) ; and so " no- 

 thing here" would aptly express the mind of the first explorers 

 when they found no gold or other treasures there to satisfy their 

 greed. Yet it appears that some gold was discovered in the 

 country by the new comers, and geologists now find auriferous 

 deposits in the region south of Quebec, where silver also is to be 

 found, but especially copper. A handful of Canadian gold was 

 shown in the Great Exhibition of the Industry of all Nations in 

 1851. 



3. A third conjecture on this point has occurred to my mind, 

 which may possibly be worthy of attention. I fancy the name 

 may be of oriental origin ; for I met some years since with the 

 word Canada in a very learned article on the Canarese language 

 and literature in Zeitschrift der Deutschen IMorgenlandischen 

 Gesellschaft for 1848, p. 258, where the erudite author gives 

 Canada as another form of the names Canara, and Carnata, 

 from which we doubtless get the geographical names Canara 

 and Carnatic in Southern India. The occurrence of the word in 

 such a connection recalled to my mind the fact, that the first 

 discoverers of the New World thought it was part of India, and 

 so its natives were styled Indians and its islands were called the 

 West Indies ; and it also suggested to me the possibility, that a 

 part of the mainland was in like manner called Canada in refer- 

 ence to the part of India that was so named, either because the 

 voyagers took it for a portion of India, or because they fancifully 

 chose to transfer the name to the new continent. Most likely other 

 names in America may be accounted for in the same manner, such 

 as LaChine^ near Montreal, and such as Chile in South America, 

 which is also the name of a large Province in China. Martiniere 

 tells us in his Diet. Geographique et Critique, under article Terre 

 Neuve^ that the Grand Bank of Newfoundland was once called " le 

 grand Banc des Moluques," after the Molucca Islands of the 

 East. And Columbus, it appears, wrote from Haiti, to the 

 king of Spain, saying that he had there found the renowned 

 Ophir (Sopara), with all the treasures coveted by king Solomon. 

 (See Kalisch on Genesis, p. 282). 



