INDIAN SIMMER. 135 



might readily suppose to belong to some European language, viz : Fa- 

 der, Mader, Sunn, Dokter, Brader, Mand, Vidhava; yet every one of 

 these is either Sanskrit or Persian. So the following words, Denta a 

 tooth, Brouua the eye-brow, Lih lip. Genu knee, Ped foot, JVasa nose, 

 Slara star, Gela cold, Dhara eartli, JS'uu ship, Ghau cow, Sarimm 

 serpent, h.c. 



But these languages are allied not merely by verbal coincidences, 

 they exhibit a much more important conformity in their grammatical 

 structure. Bopp, a distinguished writer in 1816, ascertained by an 

 analysis of the Sanskrit verb compared with the conjugational system of 

 the other members of tliis family, that there existed an intimate primi- 

 tive affinity between them. The Greek verb, with its conjugations and 

 complicated machinery of active, passive, and middle voices, augments 

 and reduplications, is here found, and illustrated in a variety of ways. 

 Our own language here has light thrown upon some of its anomalies. 

 If we ask, where is the positive of the comparative letter? We surely 

 would not say, good, nor w'ould we look for it in the Teutonic dialects, 

 in which the same anomaly exists. But we find it in the Persian Beh, 

 comparative Behter. So also the contrasted adjective Bad, comparative 

 Bahdler, worse. Sec. 



Thus we perceive the mode in which affinities are traced, between 

 the languages which have an Indo-European stock. Before investiga- 

 tion, they appear to be independent. As their distinctive features are 

 more and more studied, resemblances appear, until, at length, the con- 

 clusion is irresistible, that they are derived from one common origin. 



The same process is pursued in relation to the Semitic stock of lan- 

 guages \ called Semitic, because the descendants of Sem or Shem use 

 them, viz. Chaldee or Aramean, Syriac, Hebrew, Arabic, Ethiopic, Sa- 

 maritan and Coptic. 



METEOROLOGY, NO. VII. 



INDIAN SUMMER. 

 BY PROF. JACOBS, OF rBNNSYLVANlA COLLEGE. 



4. In endeavoring to account for the "Indian Summer," and other 

 similar phenomena, it yet remains our duty to attempt to explain the 

 reason of the comparative quiescence of the atmosphere, which has 

 been stated to be an essential condition to the existence of a smoky sky. 



Rest is the normal, and motion the disturbed state of the atmos- 

 phere. If it were entirely iree from the influence of all external dis- 

 turbing forces, it would revolve uniformly with the earth once in a side- 



