8 THE INSULATION OF ST. MICHAEL'S MOUNT. 
Bannister, at once, and without question, accepted it as correct; as 
he says, “In his paper read before the British Association ... . 
Mr. Pengelly adduced that very name” (Cara clowse in cowse) “as 
irrefragable evidence that Cornish, 7.¢., a Celtic language, an Aryan 
language, was spoken in the extreme west of Europe about 20,000 
years ago.”* So startling a statement was undoubtedly calculated 
to rouse so eminent a philologer, and, accordingly, he set himself 
to work to demolish it, not, however, before he must have known 
that I had been incorrectly reported, or, if not, had recanted, for it 
is obvious that before writing his paper he had in his possession 
a copy of the authorized abstract of my Royal Institution lecture 
in April, 1867, since he avowedly quotes it, though not quite. 
correctly, at the commencement of his paper. Indeed, he states 
that “In his more recent paper Mr. Pengelly has given up this 
position” (the 20,000 years antiquity of the Cornish language), 
“and he considers it improbable that any philologer could now give 
a trustworthy translation of a language spoken 20,000 years ago.” + 
Notwithstanding this, however, he proceeds in his work of demo- 
lition, and, it must be confessed, with such eminent success as to 
render it impossible, if any one ever did hold the heresy, for him 
to do so again. For myself, [am heartily delighted to find that 
the conclusion which from the first I held to be utterly untenable, 
has been pronounced by the distinguished Oxford Professor to be 
one “which would completely revolutionize our received views as 
to the early history of language and the migrations of the Aryan 
race.” t ; ; 
Instead of following the learned Professor step by step through 
his paper, it will be sufficient in this place to state, in passing, 
that he recognizes the Mount as the Iktis of Diodorus Siculus, 
remarking that it “was at last admitted even by the late Sir G. C. 
Lewis” ;§ accepts the charters of Edward the Confessor (1044),]|| 
and of Leofric Bishop of Exeter (1088) ;{ declines the assertion 
of Sir Henry James that there are trees growing on the Mount 
in sufficient numbers to have justified the ancient descriptive 
