TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION H. 911 



puting time and measming' land were given, and their marriage customs and burial 

 customs sketched. 



The author described his adoption into the tribe, and inauguration as successor 

 to the chief of the Wolf clan. He treated of their rich legendary lore, giving a 

 short legend as related to him by the eldest man of the tribe, whom, together with 

 all narrators or writers of fiction, the Indians call a ' great liar ' — not in disrespect, 

 however. 



The language of the Senecas presents remai-kable peculiarities, and these were 

 pointed out. The language contains no labials, hence the Senecas know nothing 

 of such letters as b,f, I, ■m,p, and v. Every letter in the language is sounded. 

 There is not a noun of one syllable in the language. 



There are three numbers, as in the Greek — viz., singular, dual, and plural. 

 Pronouns are few. The word iih means I, me, we, and us. lis means thou, thee, 

 you, and ye. 



The verb has an optative mood, like the Greek, and also aa aorist tense. 

 Adjectives abound in the language, and are generally compounded with the nouns 

 which they are designed to qualify. 



The numerals, as employed by the Senecas in everyday life, run up to about 

 one hundred. 



The paper closed with an account of the great Iroquois Confederation, which 

 gave the North American continent to the English-speaking race. 



11. Contributions to the Remote History of Mankind. 

 By Akin EHeolt. 



Although foreign to his avocations or pursuits, the question of the Turanian 

 origin of the first founders of Babylon has from, the first exercised considerable 

 fascination on the mind of the writer. From fortuitous circumstances he has 

 been led, within recent years, to identify various, hitherto believed distinct, terms 

 ■of great importance in the history of religions ; and, leisure permitting, he has 

 within the last year or two followed up the same subject, into which he is now 

 making assiduous researches. 



The outcome of the latter has been, hitherto, the discovery of affinities or 

 points of contact, heretofore unsuspected, between the religions of the more important 

 races of the Aryan, Semitic, and Turanian sections of mankind, which will throw 

 considerable light on the remote history of the civilised world. 



A further result of these investigations, as yet, however, only begun, will be, 

 more particularly, striking evidence of the great and unsurmised part enacted by 

 the Turanian races in the history of the old world, comprising Asia, Africa, and 

 Europe. 



A final analysis of the subject-matters treated has, furthermore, revealed to the 

 writer new views concerning the original formation of words, a question distinct, 

 as he views it, from the origin of language. 



The present paper forms a first -instalment of these researches, and comprises 

 the identification of several very important terms derived from what, for want of a 

 better word, the writer would call the theography (denoting a means between 

 mythology and theology) of ancient nations ; added to which are new explanations 

 of some geographical and ethnological terms also relating to the same. 



TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 6. 



The following Report and Papers were read : — 



1. Report of the Committee for ascertaining and recording the localities in 

 the British Islayids in ivhich evidences of the existence of Prehistoric In- 

 Jiaiiianis of the country are found. — See Reports, p. 168. 



