896 KBPORT — 1900. 



so that Ghortonicuin may very well have meant the country of the Pictones. At 

 all events, the great German philologist Pott at once saw that it was to be ex- 

 plained by reference to the word Cruithne, ' a Pict,' with which it decidedly goes 

 as distinguished from its Brythonic equivalent Prydrjn (or the older Priten) 

 with an initial ;;. The Celtican form originally meant was some such vocable as 

 Qurtonico-n, with the qu which was usual in Celtican and early Goidelic, where it 

 formed, in fact, one of the most conspicuous distinctions between those languages 

 and Brythonic or Gaulish, in which qu had been changed into^. 



My remarks have again run into tiresome details, but it is only by attending to 

 such small points that one can hope to force language to yield us any information 

 in the matter of ethnology. It may perhaps help in some measure if I sum up 

 what I have been trying to say, thus : 



The first race we have found in possession of the British Isles consisted of a 

 small swarthy population of mound-dwellers, of an unwarlike disposition, much 

 given to magic and wizardry, and living underground : its attributes have been 

 exaggerated or otherwise distorted in the evolution of the Little People of our 

 fairy tales. 



The next race consisted of a blue-eyed people, taller and blonder, who tattooed 

 themselves and fought battles. These tattooed or Pictish people made the Mound 

 Folk their slaves, and in the long run their language may be supposed to have 

 been modified by habits of speech introduced by those slaves of theirs from 

 their own idiom. The affinities of these Picts may be called Libyan, and possibly 

 Iberian. 



Next came the Celts in two great waves of immigration, the first of which may 

 have arrived as early as the 7th century before our era, and consisted of the 

 real ancestors of some of our Goidels of the Milesian stock, and the linguistic 

 ancestors of all the peoples who have spoken Goidelic. That language may be 

 defined as Celtican so modified by the idioms of the population, which the earlier 

 Celts found in possession, that its syntax is no longer Aryan. 



Then, about the third century B.C., came from Belgica the linguistic ancestors 

 of the peoples who have spoken Brythonic ; but most of our modern Brythons 

 are to be regarded as descended from Goidels who adopted Brythonic speech, and 

 in so doing brought into that language their Goidelic idioms, with the result 

 that the syntax of insular Brythonic is no less non-Aryan than that of Goidelic, 

 as may be readily seen by comparing the thoroughly Aryan structure of the few 

 sentences of old Gaulish extant. 



Those are the races which have been inferred in the course of these remarks, 

 in which I have proceeded on the principle that each successive band of conquerors 

 has its race, language, and institutions eventually more or less modified by contact 

 with the race, language, and institutions of those whom it has conquered. That 

 looks simple enough when stated so, but the result which we get proves com- 

 plicate. At all events I have endeavoured to substitute for the rabble of divinities 

 and demons, of fairies and phantoms that disport themselves at large in Celtic 

 legend, a possible succession of peoples, to each of which should be ascribed its 

 own proper attributes. But that will only be possible if we can enlist the kindly 

 aid of the Muse of Archaeology. 



The following Papers and Reports were read : — 

 1. Some Implements of the Natives of Tasmania. By J. Paxton Moir. 



The author gives an account of diggings in native camping grounds in 

 Tasmania, and of the rude undergroimd stone implements found there, comprising 

 hand-axes, skinning knives, &c., and especially certain tools of finer make, concave 

 scrapers, and groovers. 



