July 1, 1887.] 



♦ KNOVSTLEDGE 



205 



Sanskrit vrkas Old Bulgarian vlukir. 



Greek lukos Gothic vulfs. 



Latin lupus Old High") 



Lithuanian ...«ji/^«s German | 



widf. 



Even the connection between Greek and English is by no 

 means obvious till the law of kindred is pointed out. The 

 connection between pater and father is indeed easily recog- 

 nised ; but one does not at once see how dika and ten are 

 connected, yet nothing is more certain than that tlie.se two 

 words not only mean the same number, but mean it in the 

 same way. To trace the connection we have to go back to 

 the Gothic taihiin or two hands, from which our '■ ten " is 

 unquestionably derived. But even taihun differs slightly 

 from tUka. We notice further, however, the Latin decern, 

 the relationship of which to the Greek dSka is certain (though 

 affected by our mode of mispronouncing the Latin "c"). 

 Now, the Teutonic " h " was the equivalent of the Greek 

 and Latin k or c, as horn for cornu shows, or the 

 Gothic hu7id for canis, or iiuha for duco (or, conversely, 

 garden for hortus^=(3tveek chortos). So that we recognise in 

 decern and deka words indicating two hands, as, indeed, the 

 " ten " in any language is bound to do. The word " ten " is 

 fully as much altered from the original two-han or taihun, as 

 decern from duo and ken, or hen, which last root we recognise 

 only in its compounds, pre.hendo, comprehend o, &c. — the old 

 verb hendo, to grasp with the hand, having early disappeared 

 from the Latin. Of course, in ca7iis we have the idea of 

 grasping just as we have in our English hound, the connec- 

 tion of which word with /land is undoubted. In passing 

 we may note the connection between prixe and //and, which 

 seems at first sight incredible, but properly looked at is 

 obvious, being simply shown by the series, prixe, jirise (Fr.), 

 prendre, preliendo, henden, hand. 



One might cite, again, the connection between the Greek 

 pente and the English Jive. At first sight there seems no 

 connection at all. But between the old Greek pempe (as in 

 Homer) and the Gothic /7'»i/' the connection is clear enough ; 

 and no one can doubt that omv jive is derived from the early 

 Teutonic _/!"my'. In the Latin we have quinque, q replacing 

 p, instead of /, as in the Gothic. But qu was simply a 

 strongly gutturalised w sound, as in old Scottish. 



One of the strangest traces of the old language from which 

 all the Indo-European or Aryan languages were derived,- is 

 found in our auxiliary forms, ivere, wert, corresponding to 

 the German werden ; for, going back, we find in Anglo- 

 Saxon weorlhan, in Old High German luerdan, in Gothic 

 vairthan — that is, we find the root forms weorth, werd, 

 vairtlt — while in Latin we have vertere (root vert) and 

 in Sanskrit vrt (the exact vowel sound before the r un- 

 known). 



All this has been brought to my thoughts by the idea of a 

 new universal language — a sort of correction of the Babel 

 mistake, so far as the language of commerce, at least, is 

 concerned. This new language has cost its inventor, 

 M. Schleyer, of Constance, no less than twenty years' 

 labour ; but it can be learned in eight lessons (he says). 

 Supposing all nations accept it, and all men engaged in 

 business take their eight lessons, this pleasing language 

 will occupy the same sort of position the world over which 

 " pigeon English " now occupies in China. Its vocabulary is 

 a miscellaneous gathering from many languages, English 

 claiming a goodly share. All its words are monosyllables. 

 Time is iim in Volapuk, as the new language is cheerfully 

 called ; stone is st07i, and smoke is sniok. So far all is easy, 

 we seem to have been speaking Volapuk all the time, with- 

 out knowing it. But alas, wisdom is sap (verhum sap) ; 

 pain is dol, and a river is flum, all which words are 

 objectionable to English ears. Then the monosyllables are 



put together into words suggestive of worse than Babel. 

 Thus we are told to believe that Liko stadols is a suitable 

 way of saying, " How are you 1 " and Glidi sol a proper 

 expression for " Good day, sir." 



Judging from the history of former attempts in the same 

 direction, Volapuk is not likely to come very soon into 

 general use. 



It is interesting to observe how language illustrates the 

 past development of races. We may find no material 

 records of the spread of a race over the earth's surface, and 

 yet be as certain from the evidence of language that the race 

 has occupied such and such regions as if we found the 

 remains of buildings they had erected, or of works of various 

 kinds which they had executed. We can in this way find 

 also in language some evidence as to the part of the earth 

 from which the Indo-European races originally spread. It 

 would seem that the Aryan Indians of Lower India came 

 from the Punjaub, and earlier still our Indo-European 

 ancestors appear to have occupied the Highlands of Central 

 Asia to the west of Itelurtag and Mustag. 



THE GREAT LICK TELESCOPE.* 



By Richard A. Proctor. 



HE time draws near when science will learn 

 how much the gieat Lick Telescope, perched 

 on its exceeding high " mountain," may be 

 expected to reveal. The expectations of 

 tSS /i^'W the world outside science are also " exceed- 

 feifeH»-|-i ;; ing high," especially in America, and still 

 more especially in the far West. Yet we 

 have had some disappointing experiences during the past 

 ten or twelve years, which .should lead us to limit our 

 expectations in regard to the achievements of very large 

 telescopes. Those recently made seem to have hitherto 

 proved too much for the observers employed to use them ; 

 at any rate, observers very active in discovery when employ- 

 ing smaller telescopes, have done little when set to work 

 with these larger ones, so that grave fears have been aroused 

 lest science may have been the loser, instead of being, as had 

 been hoped, very greatly the gainer, through the construction 

 and erection of these powerful telescopes. 



There can be no doubt that theoietically a large telescope 

 is capable of doing better work than a small one. Not only 

 are the space-penetrating and illuminating powers of large 

 telescopes greater, but their defining powers are also better, 

 even when their magnifying jjowers are not pushed to their 

 full range. A close double star, for example, which an 

 8-inch telescope shows as two disks touching or overlapping 

 each other, will appear with the same jiower applied to an 

 18-inch telescope as two well-defined disks, clearly separated 

 from each other. Increase the power in each telescope, and 

 whereas in the former no separation is effected, with the 

 larger the dark space between the disks is correspondingly 

 widened. Let the smaller telescope even be the most perfect 

 work of Alvan Clarke and his skilfully co-operative son.s, 

 while the larger is perhaps the work of only a second-rate 

 optician, yet will the larger attest its superiorit}' in the same 

 decisive way. All the skill even of the Clarkes would not 

 enable an 8 inch telescope to separate double stars lying 

 within a certain degree of i)roxiniity which a 1. '5-inch or 

 18-inch telescope would re.solve quite easily. And mani- 

 festly, when we consider that every object examined with a 

 telescope consists of multitudes of points whose aggregate 



* From the J\'W» y'ork World. 



