44 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 
and headlands of a country were intended to express some physical 
peculiarity. In his introduction to the “ Vindication of Irish His- 
tory” (p. 6), Vallancey thus writes: ‘‘ It is unreasonable to suppose 
that the proper names of men, places, rivers, &c., were originally 
imposed in an arbitrary manner, without regard to properties, cir- 
cumstances, or particular occurrences. We should rather think that 
in the earliest period, and especially when the use of letters was 
unknown, a name usually conveyed a brief history of the thing 
signified ; and thus recorded as it were by a method of artificial 
memory.” Dr. Bannister, the author of a Glossary of Cornish 
names, says ‘that Cornwall is a peculiar country. From its geo- 
graphical position it may be called the first and last in England ; 
and one and all good Cornishmen will maintain that it is also the 
best. Time was when Devonshire was part of Cornwall, with 
Exeter, it is thought, for its capital; which city was till the tenth 
century inhabited conjointly by Cornish and Saxons. The Cornish 
were driven across the Tamar by Athelstane; and it was declared 
death for one to be found east of its banks.” It was about 930 
that Athelstane thus violently compelled the Cornish to retire to 
the west of the Tamar. Devonshire, therefore, was much more 
strongly subjected to Saxon influences than Cornwall; and hence 
it may be expected, that the traces of Gaelic will be less distinctly 
and commonly marked in the Topography of the former than of the 
latter county. 
The names of the rivers of Devonshire readily disclose their Gaelic 
origin, ¢. g.: 
Teign, teth, hot, and an, amhainn, river. The Tyne of Haddington 
and Northumberland. 
Dart, doirt, to rush, or pour out. 
Plym, plum, to plunge. 
The Mew and Cad unite to form the Plym. 
Mew or Meavy: magh, a plain; or meadhon, middle. 
Cad, cath, battle ; or cas, rapid. 
Tavy, Taw, tamh, quiet, a river. The Thames, Tay in Scotland, 
and Taff, Tave, Taw in Wales, come from the same root. Tabh in 
Trish and Scottish Gaelic signifies water or ocean. 
Torridge, Tor, Tory : Into those names torr, a heap or round hill, 
clearly enters. Torr is a purely Gaelic word. It forms one of the 
expressive monosyllables which frequently occur in the poems of _ 
