upon British Ethnology. 
195 
less on tlie eastern coast of Scotland, as far north as Aber¬ 
deen. Mr. Taylor remarks that the words inver and aber, 
which both mean a confluence of waters, are useful test- 
words in discriminating between the two Celtic families, inver 
being the Gaelic word and aber the Brythonic. And he notes 
that if we draw a line from a point a little south of Inverary 
to another a little north of Aberdeen, we shall find that, with 
a few exceptions, the invers lie north-west of the line and the 
abers to the south-east of it. 11 In Ireland he remarks that 
the Erse or Gaelic word bally, a town, occurs in 2000 names, 
while it is unknown in Wales and Brittany. And in Scotland 
bally abounds in the inver district, while it is extremely rare 
among the abers. But, though these test-words probably give 
a true notion of the amount of territory over which Brythonic 
influence prevailed, it must be remembered that we can learn 
nothing from them or other language tests as to the pro¬ 
portion of Brythons, by race, to Goidels and pre-Celtic 
peoples, in the districts speaking a Brythonic tongue. 
In the middle of the 4th century, b.c., Britain was visited 
by the famous explorer Pytheas, 12 whose expedition was fitted 
out by the Greek merchants of Marseilles with a view of 
enabling them to open out a trade in tin and amber with the 
northern nations. Pytheas does not seem to have visited 
Western Britain. In the south east he saw an abundance of 
wheat in the fields, and notices the necessity of threshing it 
out in covered barns on account of the rainy climate. After 
the return of Pytheas a trade appears to have been opened 
between Britain and the Continent, not between Cornwall 
and Brittany, but between Kent and the nearest part of Gaul. 
Mr. Elton remarks that the Celts may have brought in the 
knowledge of iron and silver : the continental Celts being 
known to have used iron broadswords at the battle of the 
Anio in the 4tli century b. c. (361 b.c.), and iron having been 
worked in Sussex by the Britons in the time of Julius Cassar. 
11 Mr. Skene (‘ Celtic Scotland,’ vol. i., p. 221) differs to some extent 
from Mr. Taylor as to the distribution of inver and aber. Also on that 
of pen and ben. 
12 See Elton’s ‘ Origins of English History,’ chap. i. 
