84 
THE NATURALISTS’ JOURNAL. 
instructive discourse given by Mr. Charles S. Cooper on the 
subject, in the course of which he pointed out the necessary 
struggle for existence which goes on among plants, especially at 
the commencement of their career, and which had led to the 
development of various structures either serving to protect the 
seed from its enemies or to carry it to some distance from the 
parent plant, and, in a few cases, even to bury it in the earth. 
November 4: At the meeting held on this date Mr. W. B. 
Baskerville delivered a very entertaining lecture entitled 
“ Geography and Civilisation,” which he said was practically a 
continuation of a former lecture he had given before the Club on 
an allied subject.* He had then shown the connection that 
necessarily existed between the two sciences of geography and 
geology, and he would now proceed to show the relations between 
the former science and history. The present names of places 
often had a most interesting origin, though to most people they 
were meaningless. In many cases they revealed the nature of 
the former inhabitants of a district; thus, in our own country 
certain places had names terminated by the monosyllable “ by,” 
as Appleby, Derby, etc., and this termination was pure Danish 
and of course pointed to the former occupation of the land by 
the Danes. Other places possessed names that had been 
originally given by Saxon rulers, but had become more or less 
corrupted, subsequently; such as Dereward, in the Fens, (now 
Deerworth), Aston and Stanford (now Stamford.) The dialect 
of a people often gave a clue to their history ; that of the people 
of Cumberland, for instance, was decidedly Danish. Between 
Hungary and Finland there were some 600 miles ; nevertheless, 
the inhabitants of each of these places had a common language. 
This was explained by the fact that the two peoples had had 
their origin in an Asiatic race, which, migrating to Europe, had 
split up, one division going north to form the modern Finns and 
the other continuing westward and giving rise to the Hungarians. 
The lecturer went on to show how the frontier-lines on our maps 
were often quite modern, as the present one between Russia and 
Turkey. Strasburg and Kehl, towns opposite one another on 
the Rhine, and now belonging to Germany, were, 200 years ago, 
the property ot France and Prussia respectively. As time went 
on, frontiers were shifted and fresh land appropriated, and it was 
manifestly important that those who had such matters in their 
hands, should have a good knowledge of the geographical features 
of the countries involved. As an illustration, the lecturer referred 
to the frontier which had been laid down between the United 
States and Canada by Lord Ashburton in 1842 ; for this bound¬ 
ary, though it was “ all very well” for the people of the u.s., was 
most disadvantageous for the Canadians. Had Lord Ashburton 
* Naturalists' Journal Vol I, page 68. 
