58 Place Name^;. 



A third class cuiin»rise8 a very intt-restir.iJ- set of iiuaies. 



Class III. — IL/hn'(ls. — This again is composed of two sub- 

 classes : — 



(.'/) Hybrids, pure and simple ... ... 122 > .^.^.^ 



(/i) .. complex and irreg-ular ... 100 > 



Class IV. — UnclassifuihU.-i. — This name is applicable to several 

 place names which are, on the face of them, apparently be3^ond 

 the pale of any one of the above sub-classes, name.-! which do not 

 seem accountable foi-upon any method of linguistic cross-breeding-, 

 so to speak. 



Class \.— i'iii(/iirs. — ^V somewhat ai'bitrary nomenclature, 

 perhaps ; the tyrm must lie understood, of course, as unique in 

 the locality. This class comprises mostly hill names. They 

 number only 2ij, and are not included in any of the other gTOups. 



By this severely unromantic method of sub-dividing-, halving, 

 quartering, and, if necessary, decimating our groups, it is possible 

 to arrive at a stratum of fact, of a whole world of facts, indeed, 

 which, so far from being the prosaic atoms we connnonly suppose, 

 are intrinsically brimful of interest. At the outset of this enijuiry, 

 for instance, it is not unimportant te) notice that the non-G-aelic 

 names outnumber the Gaelic by over 2(M). 1 ha\'e heard the 

 exact reverse stated, without any figures to prove the assertion.] 

 A second very striking result is the small number of stream names 

 that exists compared with the uumbei- of hill names, about one toj 

 four. Unthinkingly, one might be led to infer from this that, in] 

 comparison with moimtains and heig-hts of all kinds, the Stewartry ] 

 was poor in that most beautiful and diviue touch of beauty, water. 

 This is not the case, as we all know. The seci'et is explained by i 

 the very simple fact, that names of farms or farm-lands are 

 repeatedly given to the nearest burn or river, while the hill names! 

 are their own, i.e., the names of farms are treated of in theirl 

 proper place. AVere they added to the specific names of the' 

 burns and other waters, their total might rival that of the hills 

 themselves. 



Coming more to details, we are met, next, by an array of 

 Gaelic affixes or suffixes which are all-importaut. Of these the 

 couunonest are Auchcii. Bar, Ben, Cirn'ij, Dal, Dnnn, Dun. Knock, 

 Mull. Tur, and the word Hill following a Gaelic name. In the 



