324 MEETING OF THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION. 
introduced it, and even to the comparatively recent time in which it 
was introduced. An examination of the names for Barley point to 
similar results as in the case of wheat. This word itself, as it exists 
in our language, has not, that I am aware, been traced to its parent 
source; but the name of the hardy four-rowed barley, bere, belongs to 
- the Teutonic family of languages, and it was probably the earliest, as 
the easiest variety cultivated in Britain. The French orge and the 
Italian orzo are but gross corruptions of the Latin ordeum. The 
names for barley in Gaelic and in Welsh are different, the first being 
eorna, and the last haidd. The name for Oats is essentially the same 
in these two tongues, namely, core for the Gaelic, and ceire for the 
Welsh; but for Rye the name in both languages, seag/, is evidently 
taken from the Latin secale, and we shall not err if we conclude that 
this corn was directly or indirectly introduced into our islands by the 
Romans. The Basque, again, furnishes an original name for this grain, 
namely, garagarra. The Oriental languages furnish us with similar 
evidence in the case of barley, as it does in that of wheat. In Sans- 
krit the name for it is yava, of which the Hindi jau and the Persian 
jo are certainly corruptions. In the language of the distant Tamils it 
is a widely different word, skali, which is probably but a common name 
for “corn.” In Arabic the name is shaer, and in Turkish arpa, terms 
which have no connection with each other, or with those of any lan- 
guages of Asia or Europe, and so we come to the conclusion that this 
corn is indigenous, or, at least, that its culture was not borrowed 
from strangers in the countries in which these languages are spoken. 
We cannot determine the native country or primitive locality of the 
first culture of Rice to any particular Oriental region by philological 
evidence. This corn was unknown to the Greeks and Romans, at 
least as an object of cultivation, and has no original name in their lan- 
guages. We may presume that it was equally unknown to the ancient 
Persians; for, had it been. an object as well known to them as it now 
is to their descendants, it would hardly have failed to have attracted 
the notice, and to have been described by the Greeks, who had so much 
early intercourse with Persia, In Sanskrit the general name for Rice 
is dhanva, and in Hindi it is dhan, a mere abbreviation of the same 
word; in the Tamil the name is shali. In each of the monosyllabic 
languages which extend from Bengal eastward to China inclusive, 
Rice bears a different name. Thus we have it in the Peguan as Az, in 
