332 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. VIII., No. 192 



We can, moreover, trace the identity of the 

 Norwegian occupation by the number of local 

 Norse names, and the contrasts are suiJiciently 

 striking. In Lincolnshire there are about three 

 hundred Norse names ; in Yorkshire, about three 

 liundred ; in Bedford and in Warwickshire, only 

 half a dozen. 



So much for history in our local names, and 

 one might have easily said a hundred times as 

 much on the subject. But there is interest, for 

 both young and older hearers, in details and in 

 points that ai'e of much smaller importance. 



The open-eyed and open-minded teacher, who is 

 always on the lookout for whatever will bring into 

 connection and interest with his lessons, will not 

 disdain even the slight assistance he will gain 

 from the relative positions of places, and the 

 names that have come from this. He tells his 

 pupils, for example, that another name for the 

 German Ocean is the North Sea ; but he will 

 surely go a step further than this, and show him 

 that there is a South Sea also, which the Dutch 

 call Zuyder Zee. Another step, and he will point 

 out that the Germans call the Baltic the East Sea, 

 and that the West Sea must of necessity be the 

 Atlantic. In the same way, the Weser or Veser 

 is the West River. In China this use of names of 

 direction seems to reach its height : for there we 

 have Pekin and Nankin, the northern and south- 

 ern coasts ; Peling and Nanling, the northern and 

 southern mountains ; Peho and Nanho, the north- 

 ern and southern rivers ; and Nanhai, the South- 

 ern Sea. 



Even the simple epithets old and new lend some 

 interest to the teacher's work in geography. The 

 word old takes many forms : it appears as alt, elt, 

 al, and aid, in Althorp, Eltham, Albury, Aid- 

 borough. New is an epithet, which, like every 

 other thing on earth, must itself grow old. Thus 

 New Forest is one of the oldest forests in Great 

 Britain ; New college is one of the oldest colleges 

 in Oxford, for it was founded m 1386 ; New Palace 

 Yard, in Westminster, dates from the eleventh 

 century ; and the fifty-two New Streets in London 

 are among the oldest in that vast wilderness of 

 houses. There are in England 120 villages with 

 the name of Newton, 10 towns called Newcastle, 

 and 17 called Newbiggen. It is interesting, too, to 

 observe the forms that the word new may take ; 

 as Neuf in Neufchatel, Nov in Novgorod, Ne in 

 Neville, and Na in Naples or Neapolis. 



Color, too, gives some interest to our geographi- 

 cal names. Thus Cape Verde is ' the cape fringed 

 with green palms.' The local name for the Indus 

 is the Nilab (or Blue River) ; and the mountains 

 in the south of India are called the Nilgherrie (or 

 Blue Mountains), — a name which we find also in 



Virginia. The city of Atria or Adria, from which 

 the Adriatic took its name, is ' the black town,' 

 because it was built upon the black mud brought 

 down by the Padus. The Himalaya, or, as we call 

 the range, the Himalaya, is 'the abode of snow ; ' 

 and Lebanon means ' the white mountain.' The 

 word Apennines means ' the white heads ; ' Mont 

 Blanc, Sierra Nevada, Ben Nevis, Snowdon, 

 Sneehalten, Snaefell, and many other movmtains, 

 all have the same meaning. The word alp itself, 

 being a form of albus, gives us the same indica- 

 tion ; and connected with it are Albania, Albion, 

 and Albany, which was the old name of Scotland. 



With pupils of a more advanced age, it would 

 be useful to show the identity of the Hindostani 

 abad and the Hebrew beta with the English bottle 

 (we have it in Newbattle and Bothwell) and bold, 

 witli the Slavonic Buda, and with the Cymric 

 bod in Bodmin and Boscawen. Allahabad is ' the 

 house of Allah ; ' Bethany, ' the house of dates ; ' 

 Bethlehem, ' the house of bread ; ' and Bethel, ' the 

 house of God,' 



We have seen that names throw light upon 

 history,, and that history throws light upon names ; 

 but names also throw light upon physical changes, 

 and on the variations of climate that have taken 

 place in this island. Thus we have in different 

 parts of England places and parts of towns called 

 Vineyard, where no vines can nowadays grow. 

 Mr. Thompson, the eminent gardener, tells us' that 

 when he was a boy the island of Mull had many 

 orchards of excellent apples, while now the whole 

 surface of the island is not adequate to the pro- 

 duction of a single eatable apple. He tells us, 

 too, that at Hatfield, near London, — the seat of 

 Lord Salisbury, — there used to be f om-teen hun- 

 dred standard vines, which produced the grapes 

 that found the house in its supplies of wine ; 

 whereas now there is not a single grape produced 

 except under glass. The name vineyard in Britain 

 is therefore nowadays a name, and nothing more. 



There is, not far from Loch Maree, in Ross-shire, 

 a farm that bears the name of Kinloch Ewe; that 

 is, the head of Loch Ewe. But Loch Maree, or 

 Mary's Loch, was, geologists tell us, at one time 

 only one of the upper reaches of Loch Ewe ; and 

 this conclusion of geologists is borne out by the 

 name Kinloch Ewe, which is not on Loch Ewe at 

 all, but about a mile above the upper end of Loch 

 Maree. But there can be no doubt that this farm 

 marks the point to which the older Loch Ewe at 

 one time extended. 



Local names, too, give us evidence of animals 

 that are now extinct in this island. The existence 

 of the wolf and the bear in England is marked by 

 such names as Wolfeslow in Herefordshire, and 

 Barnwood in Gloucestershire. The wild boar, or 



