158 Transactions,— Miscellaneous, 
The term ‘fossil words” signifies words embedded in a language, or 
which have not been eradicated by foreign influences—such as the Saxon 
words in the modern English language. The roots of the language will be 
found to consist of these; hence they remain as witnesses of derivative, 
national or tribal connection with the parent region, however remote in 
time or distant in space. Fossil words, then, furnish as certain a clue to 
connection of races as either idiomatic or phonetic similarity,* though this 
Opinion is disputed. Root or fossil words, it has been shown in previous 
papers, are only to be eradicated with the extinction of the race, and to 
this branch we at present address ourselves. 
The previous papers on this subject, whose first object was to investigate 
the whence of the Maori, t.e., the tribe that inhabits New Zealand, confined 
their scope to the Malayan, Malagasi, and Polynesian dialects. In the 
present paper I have prosecuted my enquiries far beyond into the regions 
of Asia, Africa, and Australia, in which labour I was assisted by the works 
noted below.t 
The basis of my investigations have been the Malayan Language, with 
which my long sojourn in the Far East made me familiar, but the present 
work has led me into a scrutiny of over four hundred languages and dialects. 
The conclusion that I was brought to previously, viz., that, counter to 
popular opinion, the Maori and hence Polynesian race, was not originally 
from the Malay (though it might be through or with them), but from a race 
or races which in pre-historic times inhabited Hindustan, seemed to claim 
further demonstration than my materials could at that time afford. In my 
recent visit to England, therefore, I collected all the works bearing on the 
subject that I could obtain. 
* For instance, Malay has a compounding construction, Malagasi an inflecting, 
though both are admitted to be originally one. 
+ Non-Aryan Languages of India and High Asia, by W. W. Hunter; Languages of 
India, by G. Campbell; Polyglotta Africana, by S. W. Koelle; Australian Languages, by 
William Ridley; Mosambique Languages, by W. H. J. Bleek; Malagasi, by Julius Kessler; 
Kafir Language, by John Ayliff; Swahili Handbook, Shambala Language, Yao Language, 
all by Edward Steere; Malagasi Grammar, by David Griffiths; Enguduk Iloigob Vocabu- 
lary, by J. Erhardt; Dictionary of Tshi, Akra, &c., by Christaller, Locher and Zimmer- 
mann; Vocabulary, Haussa Language, by J. F. Schon; Languages of Sierra Leone 
(anonymous); Bullom Grammar, by G. R. Nylander; Western and Central African 
Vocabulary (anonymous); Dialects in Africa, by John Clark; Bornu and Kanuri 
Languages, by Edwin Norris; Dialects of Nicobar and Andaman Islands, by F. A. de 
Róepstorff; Fijian Dictionary, by D. Hazlewood; Samoan Grammar and Dictionary, by 
George Pratt; New Zealand Language, by William Williams; Hawaiian Dictionary, by 
Lorrin Andrews; Japanese Dictionary, by J. C. Hepburn; Comparative Vocabulary, 
Malay Archipelago, by Wallace, &c., &e, 
