146 COSMOS. 



At the northeastern extremity of the Black Sea a wide field 

 was also opened to ethnology. Astonishment was felt at the 

 multiplicity of languages among the different races,* and the 

 necessity for skillful interpreters (the first aids and rough in- 

 struments in a comparative study of languages) was keenly 

 felt. The intercourse established by barter and trade was 

 carried from the Mseotic Gulf, then supposed to be of very 

 vast extent, over the Steppe where the central Kirghis horde 

 now pasture their flocks, through a chain of the Scythio-Sco- 

 lotic tribes of the Argippseans and Issedones,t whom I regard 

 as of Indo-Gerrnanic origin, to the Arimaspes on the northern 

 declivity of the Altai Mountains, who possessed large treasures 

 in gold.J Here, therefore, we have the ancient realm of the 



* Cramer, De Studiis quae veteres ad aliarum gentium contttlfrint Lin- 

 guas, 1844, p. 8 and 17. The ancient Colchians appear to have been 

 identical with the tribe of the Lazi (Lazi, gentes Colchorum, I'liu., vi., 

 4; the Aafot of Byzantine writers); see Vater (Professor in Kasan), 

 Der Argonautenzug avs den Qnellen dargestellt, 1845, Heft, i., s. 24; 

 Heft, ii., s. 45, 57, uud 103. In the Caucasus, the names Alani (Alane- 

 thi, for the land of the Alaui), Ossi, and Ass may still be heard. Ac- 

 cording to the investigations begun with a truly philosophic and philo- 

 logical spirit by George Rosen in the Valleys of the Caucasus, the lan- 

 guage spoken by the Lazi possesses remains of the ancient Colchian 

 idiom. The Iberian and Grussic family of languages includes the La- 

 zian, Georgian, Suanian, and Mingrelian, all belonging to the group of 

 the Indo-Germanic languages. The language of the Osseti bears a great 

 er affinity to the Gothic than to the Lithuanian. 



t On the relationship of the Scythians (Scolotes or Sacse), Alani, 

 Goths, MassagetJE, and the Yueti of the Chinese historians, see Klaproth, 

 in the commentary to the Voyage dn Comte Potocki, t. i., p. 129, as 

 well as my Asie Centrale, t. i.. jj. 400 ; t. ii., p. 252. Procopius him- 

 self says very definitely (De Bella Gothico, iv., 5, ed. Bonn, 1833, vol. 

 ii., p. 476). that the Goths were formerly called Sqythians. Jacob 

 Grimm, in his recently-published work, Ucber Jornandes, 1846, s. 21, 

 has shown the identity of the Get;e and the Goths. The opinion of Nie- 

 buhr (see his Untersuchungen uber die Geten tind Sarmaten. in his Kle/ne 

 Historische nnd Philologische Schriflen, lie Sammlung, 1828, s. 3li2, 

 364, uud 395), that the Scythians of Herodotus belong to the family of 

 the Mongolian tribes, appears the less probable, since these tribes, 

 partly under the yoke of the Chinese, and partly under that of the Ha- 

 kas or Kirghis (Xe/^/f of Meiiiinder), still lived, far in the east of Asia, 

 round Luke Baikal, in the beginning of the thirteenth century. He- 

 rodotus distinguishes also the bald-headed Argippe;ms (iv., 23) from the 

 Scythians; and if the first-named are characterized as ' flat-nosed," 

 they have, at the same time, a " long chin," which, according to my 

 }xpeience, is by no means a physiognomical characteristic of the Cal 

 mucs, or of other Mongolian races, but rather of the blonde (German 

 izing?) Usun and Tingling, to whom the Chinese historians ascribe 

 ' long horse faces." 



\ On the dwelling-place of the Arimaspes, and on the gold trade ol 



