SIXTH ORDINARY MEETING. 43 
3. Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Nos. 6 and 7, June and 
July, 1884. 
Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Vol. LIII., Part II., No. 2, 1884. 
4, Mittheilungen der Anthropologische Gesellschaft in Wien, XIV. Band, 2 
und 3 Heft. 
5. Archivio per |’Antropologia e la Etnologia, Vol. XIV., Fascicolo Secondo 
Firenze, 1884. 
6. Société des Ingénieur Civils, Séance du 7th November, 1884. 
Mr. F. J. Garden and Mr. Herbert L. Bowman were elected 
members of the Institute. 
Dr. Daniel Wilson read a paper on “ The Bohemian Skull,” 
which will appear in a subsequent fasciculus. 
Messrs. Buchan and Bain made brief remarks. 
A paper by Dr. Neil MacNish on “The Gaelic Topography 
of Damnonia,” was read for the author by Mr. VanderSmissen. 
THE GAELIC TOPOGRAPHY OF DAMNONIA. 
I propose in this paper to examine the Topography of that portion 
of England which was at one time known as Dumnonia or Dam- 
nonia. For the sake of convenience it may be maintained that 
Damnonia embraced Devonshire, Cornwall, and the Scilly Isles. A 
writer in the Lncyclopedia Britannica remarks that ‘“‘ Dumnonia or 
Damnonia, the Latinized name of a kingdom which long remained 
independent after the arrival and early conquests of the West 
Saxons, seems to be identical with the Cymric Dyfnaint, which 
survives in the present Devon. The Saxon settlers, as they ad- 
vanced into the country, called themselves Defenas, 2. ¢., men of 
Devon or Dyfnaint, thus adopting the British name.” Into Dyfnaint, 
Devon, the Welsh word dw/fn, Gaelic domhain, seems to enter as a 
component part. Professor Rhys states, that the remains of the lan- 
guage of the Dumnonii in Devon and Cornwall leave no kind of 
doubt that they were of the earlier Celts or Goidels, and not Bry- 
thons, I am of opinion that satisfactory evidence can still be ex- 
tracted from the names of rivers and bays and headlands in the 
ancient kingdom of Damnonia, to show that Celts, whose language 
was Gaelic, gave in the distant past many of those topographical 
appellations which, with various degrees of correctness, have come 
down to our own time. It may be safely affirmed that the names 
which were given in an early age to the streams and lochs and hills 
