6i 4 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Thirty years ago estimates of the number of people speaking 

 the Basque language or Euskara ran all the way from four to 

 seven hundred thousand. Probability pointed to about a round 

 half million, which has perhaps become six hundred thousand to- 

 day ; although large numbers have emigrated of recent years to 

 South America, and the rate of increase in France, at least, is 

 very slow. About four fifths of these are found in the Spanish 

 provinces of Vizcaya (Biscay), Navarra, Guipuzcoa, and Alava, 



LANGUAGES 



PLACE NAMES I 



ALONE, . . . . ' 

 E>ASVE PlAdL NAMES 

 AND 5PEEOH . . 



at the western extreme of the Pyrenean frontier and along the 

 coast. (See map page 632.) The remainder occupy the south- 

 western third of the department of Basses-Pyre'ne'es over the 

 mountains in France. The whole territory covered is merely a 

 spot on the European map. It is by quality, therefore, and not 

 in virtue either of numbers or territorial extension, that these 

 people merit our attention. In the preceding paper we aimed to 



umana en Espana, Madrid, 1896. Dr. De Aranzadi has also published interesting material 

 in the Basque journal, Euskal-Erria, vol. xxxv, 1896, entitled Consideraciones acerca de la 

 raza Basca. For ethnography the older standard work is by T. F. Blad6, 6tude sur Porigine 

 des Basques, Paris, 1869. The works of Webster, Dawkins, Monteiro, and others are of 

 course superseded by the recent and brilliant studies above outlined. 



