METHODS FOR PROVING ORIGIN OF SPECIES. 25 



make mention here and there of plants, with epithets or 

 reflections on their mode of flowering, their ripening, 

 their use, etc., which allow their names to be divined, 

 and to be referred to modern botanical nomenclature. 

 With the added help of a knowledge of the flora of the 

 country, and of the common names in the languages 

 derived from the dead language, it is possible to discover 

 approximately the sense of some words. This is the case 

 with Sanskrit, 1 Hebrew, 2 and Armenian. 8 



Lastly, a third category of dead languages offers no 

 certainty, but merely presumptions or hypothetical and 

 rare indications. It comprehends those tongues in which 

 there is no written work, such as Keltic, with its dialects, 

 the ancient Sclavonic, Pelasgic, Iberian, the speech of 

 the primitive Aryans, Turanians, etc. It is possible to 

 guess certain names or their approximate form in these 

 dead languages by two methods, both of which should 

 be employed with caution. 



The first and best is to consult the languages derived, 

 or which we believe to be derived, directly from the 

 ancient tongues, as Basque for the Iberian language, 

 Albanian for the Pelasgic, Breton, Erse, and Gaelic for 

 Keltic. The danger lies in the possibility of mistake in 

 the filiation of the languages, and especially in a mistaken 

 belief in the antiquity of a plant-name which may have 



1 Wilson's dictionary contains names of plants, but botanists have 

 more confidence in the names indicated by Roxburgh in his Flora 

 Indica (edit, of 1832, 3 vols. in 8vo), and in Piddington's English Index 

 to the Plants of India, Calcutta, 1832. Scholars find a greater number 

 of words in the texts, but they do not give sufficient proof of the sense 

 of these words. As a rule, we have not in Sanskrit what we have in 

 Hebrew, Greek, and Chinese a quotation of phrases concerning each 

 word translated into a modern language. 



* The best work on the plant-names in the Old Testament is that of 

 Rosemmiller, Handbuch der biblischen AlterJcunde, in 8vo, vol. iv., Leipzig, 

 1830. A good short work, in French, is La Botanique de la Bible, by 

 Fred. Hamilton, in 8vo, Nice, 1871. 



8 Reynier, a Swiss botanist, who had been in Egypt, has given the 

 sense of many plant-names in the Talmud. See his volumes entitled 

 Economic Publique et Rurale des Arabes et des Juifs, in 8vo, 1820 ; 

 and Economie Publique et Rurale des Egyptiens et des Carthaginois, 

 in 8vo, Lausanne, 1823. The more recent works of Duschak and Low 

 are not based upon a knowledge of Eastern plants, and are unintelligible 

 to botanists because of names in Syriac and Hebrew characters. 



