100 M. L. EOUSE^ ON THE PEDIGREE OF THE NATIONS. 



month of the Loire) they might have sailed through a cahner 

 and narrower sea to Britannia. 



That they bestowed on our island that name Isaac Taylor is 

 positive, from the many analogies that he finds in Spain where 

 -tani is the commonest ending for tlie name of a nation or -^«9im 

 for its country.* If so, it is a justification for my liaving pursued 

 so far in your hearing the wanderings of Thiras. One thing is 

 certain, Silitres has a doubly Iberian ring — at its beginning and 

 its ending. But the Scilly Islands were called by the Latins 

 Silurum Insulae. Was not the c there then, or, if not, where 

 •did it spring from ? My own impression is tliat the full name 

 was Siculurum Insulae ; and, if so, it would make the proof still 

 stronger that the children of Thiras planted settlements all down 

 the Italian peninsula ; for, according to early traditions, the 

 dominion of the Siculi had once extended far up into Latium, 

 where they built Tibur, or Tivoli, long before liome was born. 



There is more truth than at first appears in the myth that 

 Taras, a son of Poseidon, the sea-god, rode from Greece to Italy 

 on a dolphin and there founded the city of Tarentum, where he 

 was worshipped as a hero. 



There may, too, be something to find out and to tell about an 

 eastward migration of part of the great family of Japhet's 

 youngest son. Truly m his case is the prophecy fulfilled, " God 

 shall enlarge Japhet." 



Final Notes. 



That the divers geographical and national names which we 

 have derived from Thiras may reasonably be derived from that 

 name by phonetic clianges commonly occurring in other words 

 is proved by the following examples : — • 



1. The sound % passes into tlie Swedish ?/, or German n 

 (= before French u) in the respective series — Greek 

 viintha [Latin mentha or mcnta\ Anglo-Saxon oninte, 

 English mint. German munze, Swedish mynta ; 

 Maeso-Gothic ginnan, Old High German hifjinnan, 

 Ger. and Dutch heginncn, E. begin, Sw. hegynna ; and 

 A.-S. ivringaih (to press, strain), Du. loringcn (id.), 

 Low Ger. luriiigcn (to twist together), O.II.(t. hringan 

 (to wring, to wrestle), Ger ringen (to wrestle), whence 

 Mid. Eng. wrinkcl, Old Du. wrinckd, Sw. rynka. 



■'^ C 'arpetania, Lusitanin, Turdctania and the hke — Names and Places, 

 p. 39. 



