TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 193 



languages, in which the process seemed to bo going on. Among the Australian 

 tribes " two," or a pair, made the extent of their numerals. Some other ti-ibes had 

 advanced to count as far as " five " and " ten." The Malayan nation had native 

 numerals extending to a thousand, above whicli they borrowed from the Sanscrit. 

 The rude and imperfect numerals of some tribes would seem to have been superseded 

 by the more comprehensive ones of more advanced nations, a remarkable example of 

 which was the general prevalence of the Malayan numerals among all the nations 

 of the Malayan and Philippine Archipelagos, among the tribes, whether fair or 

 negro, of the islands of the Pacific, and even among the negroes of Madagascar. 

 The Roman nmnerals had been adopted, to the supercession of their own, by tlie 

 Celtic nations. The two hands and the ten fingers seemed to have been the main 

 aids to the fonnation of the abstractions which Adam Smith considered so subtle. 

 This would account for the numeral scale being sometimes found binary, some- 

 times quinary, but generally decimal. However great the difficulties of construct- 

 ing languages, there was no doubt they were conquered by mere savages. Language 

 was even brought to perfection as to structure, and for the expression of ordinary 

 ideas, by men who were but barbarians. The poems of Homer, composed before 

 the invention of letters, were as perfect Greek as any that were ever after ^vl■itten. 

 The Sanscrit language, in all its complexity and perfection of structure, was spoken 

 and written at least three thousand years ago by men who, compared with their 

 posterity, were completely barbarian. The Esquimaux had a language of great 

 complexity and structure. Languages, then, were foiiued everywhere by rude 

 savages, and time alone seemed to have been sufficient to enable them to elaboi-ate 

 a system perfect for its purpose with every race of man. The vocabulary of the 

 rudest tongue probably embraced not fewer than 10,000 w.»rds, every one of which 

 had to be invented. These words, in order to form a coherent system, had often to 

 undergo modifications of form, and some of them, besides their literal meanino-, 

 had to receive metaphorical ones. What ages, then, must not have elapsed from 

 the fii-st attempts to assign names to a few familiar objects, to that in which 

 language had attained the completion at which it had arrived, as we find it even 

 among cannibals ! Between the completion in question and the discovery of the 

 art of wi-iting, made only here and there, imder veiy favourable conditions as to race 

 and locality, how many additional ages must not have transpired ! That discovery 

 implied an advanced civilization, the fruit of very long time. If we considered 

 the introduction of the art of ■s\T.iting among the Jews, for example, to have been 

 coeval with the Pentateuch, this alone would cai-ry us back in the history of language 

 for near 3500 years, according to the usual computation. But at the time at which 

 the Pentateuch was written, the contemporary Egyptians were a far more civilized 

 people than the Jews, and had been long in possession of the art of writing. He 

 thought the conclusion was inevitable that the bii'th of man was of vast antiquity. 

 He came into the world without language, and in every case had to achieve the 

 arduous and tedious task of constructing speech, which, in the rudest form in which 

 it was now found, it must have taken many thousands of years to accomplish. 



On the Antiquity of the Aryan Langiuiges. By R. Cull. 



On the Ethnology of Finnmark, in Norway. By L, Daa, of Christiania. 



The district of Finnmark was situated at the extreme north of Nonvay and 

 Sweden. Its population was very scanty, but was also very diversified ; there were 

 three great divisions : — the aboriginal Laps ; the Norwegians, being immigrants 

 from Norway ; and the Fins, from Finland in Kussia. The former were chieflv 

 nomade, and the others were almost exclusively fishermen, living on the coast and 

 banks of the rivers. In 1855 the population of Finnmark proper was 15,.385 

 souls, and consisted of 5300 Norwegians, 1425 Nomades, 5786 settled Laps, and 

 2305 Finlanders. Each of the three nationalities spoke a different tongue. Mr. 

 Freiss, of Norway, had lectured upon the Laps and Fins, and from inquiries con- 

 ducted luider his superintendence a map was constructed, and from this .and some 

 statistics which had been given, the author drew conclusions to the effect that the 

 Norwegians and Fins were the more ci\ilized, and that while the Laps were learn- 



1861. 13 



