48 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 



The names of the streams and rivers of Cornwall are to a large 

 •extent Gaelic, e. g. : — 



Tamar, tabh, water ; mor, large. 



Camel, cam, crooked ; heyl, tuil, flood. 



Alan, geal, white ; an, river, Gealan. There is a river of the same 

 name, Allan, in three counties in Scotland. 



Lynher, linne, pool ; 7iM' sior, long. 



Looe, loch, or luath, swift. 



Fal,foil, gentle; fal, a cii'cle. 



Bude, huidhe (.?), yellow. 



Inny, innis, an island ; or inne, a bowel. 



Cober, Gobhar, froth. 



Kensey, ceannsa, mild, gentle. 



Hayle, sal, shcvil, salt water. 



Hone, amhainn, rivers. 



It is quite evident that into the names which have been now 

 adduced purely Gaelic roots enter — roots which appear very often in 

 the Topography of Ireland and Scotland. The slight examination 

 that I have made of the names of the rivers of Damnonia will 

 tend to exemplify the correctness of the remarks which Lliuyd 

 makes in the Welsh preface to his Archceologia Britannioa : "There 

 is no name anciently more common on rivers than Uysk, which the 

 Romans wrote Isca and Osca, and yet, as I have elsewhere observed, 

 retained in English in the several names of Ask, Esh, Ush, and Ex, 

 Axe, Ox, &c. Now, although there be a considerable river of that 

 name in Wales and another in Devon, yet the signification of the 

 word is not understood either in our language or in Cornish ; neither 

 is it less vain to look for it in the British of Wales, Cornwall, or 

 Armoric Britain than it would be to search for Avon, which is a 

 name of some of the rivers of England, in English. The significa- 

 tion of the word in Guydeleg (i. e., Gaelic) is water. * * * So 

 do the words uisge. Loch, Ban, Dru7n, &c., make it manifest that the 

 Guydhelod (i. e., the Gaels) formei-ly fixed their abode in those 

 places." 



Gam, which is eminently a Gaelic word, occurs often in the 

 Topography of Cornwall. Gam is one of the most expressive mono- 

 syllables that are to be found in the poems of Ossian. As Cairn it 

 is commonly used in the English language. Co nach cuireadh clach 'n 

 a charn, is a Gaelic proverb of very ancient date. 



