the proud race of the conquerors; and now we see the Norman names side by side, in all ranks of society, with the once despised Celtic and Saxon.

Passing over the corruptions and other changes which surnames are apt to undergo, I would here merely allude to an interesting question in connection with local surnames, which is worthy of more attention than it has yet received. It is this,-Why should certain places be so largely represented among local surnames while others apparently as likely to give origin to these are not represented, or only to a small extent? To take an illustration from our own doors, -Why should a petty estate like Aitkenhead and an insignificant village like Provan be comparatively so well represented among the Lanarkshire surnames, while Rutherglen-an older burgh than Glasgow-gives name to only one or two families, and Partick is not represented at all?

The last point I shall notice is the localization of surnames. Where the name of a place is employed as a surname some of the families bearing it are usually found resident not far away. Local surnames peculiar to a town or district are almost always taken from names of places at no great distance. Thus, surnames like Glasgow, Govan, Paisley, Provan, and Rutherglen, are most common in our own neighbourhood. In Glasgow the local surnames of Lanarkshire and adjoining counties are well represente l, and in Edinburgh those of Fife and the Lothians. Northumberland and Durham yield a large proportion of the local surnames of Newcastle, while those of Manchester are chiefly drawn from Lancashire and Cheshire.

We are all familiar with the romantic story of Robin Hood, and have read how

Robin stood in Bernysdale,

And leaned him against a tree,
And at his side stood little John,
And a good yeoman was he.

And there good Scathelock stood besides,
And Much the Miller's son,

Of whose stout body there was not an inch

But was worth a whole man each one."

We have also read of Allan a' Dale and Stoutly, and the brave chaplain, Friar Tuck, all yeomen good, who trod with Robin the "merrie greenwood." Nearly 600 years have elapsed since Robin killed the king's deer in Sherwood Forest, and yet the names of these his companions are common surnames in the forest district.

Many have looked on Robin Hood's history as a nursery tale, but in its main features it is only too true; and its truth is in part attested by the persistence of the names just mentioned on the spot where they were first heard of. Besides these, Hardstaff, Beardall, Bowman, Archer, Shaklock, and other names are met with which were probably first borne by bold outlaws who, like Robin himself, had fled to the forest glades to escape from the cruel oppression of the Normans.

Provincial names are found localized in the same way. A traveller carried blindfold into Wales, and set down in the middle of any of the towns, could tell by a glance at the signboards that he was within the principality. Gaelic names are most abundant in the Highlands, and Danish names along the east coast, where the Danes chiefly settled. And Saxon names though, like the provincial names, diffused over the whole country, are still most common where the Saxons possessed the land. A constant movement is going on in the population,-and in Scotland perhaps on a larger scale than in England; but it is a movement of individuals rather than of families, so that, notwithstanding numerous removals, there is usually a remnant, so to speak, left to perpetuate the family name, near the spot which gave it birth.

NO. XXI.

ON THE ARYAN THEORY OF LANGUAGE:

BY

DR. SCOULAR.

[Read at a Meeting of the Society held at Glasgow on 7th December, 1863.]

DR. SCOULAR read a paper "On the Aryan Theory of Language," chiefly with the view to correct the errors into which Mr. John Crawford the author of the "History of the Indian Archipelago," has fallen in a paper read to the Ethnological Society of London on this theory. This theory of the origin of language is more generally received on the continent than in Great Britain. The theory is that the languages spoken from Bengal to Ireland are all to be traced from a primitive tongue spoken by a people settled to the north-west of India, termed by the ancients Aryans-that this Aryan race subsequently spread themselves over the country originally occupied by the Allophylian or Finnish tribes. This primordial race, though now covered by the Aryan, occasionally cropped out, as it were, in the Basque and Finnish tribes. With reference to Mr. Crawford's first objection to this theory, which is that the Aryan race, being an agricultural people, were not likely to undertake foreign emigration, Dr. Scoular remarked that the very reverse of this was the case, as only such a people could form permanent settlements, whereas a horde of nomads could only make good a settlement upon a people previously civilized. It was only a great agricultural people, such as the Greeks, Romans, and modern Europeans, which succeeded in making permanent settlements among barbarous tribes. Another objection of Mr. Crawford's was the different physical features and intellectual characters of the Aryan tribes, some being black, like the Hindoos, and others pale, like the Swedes. To this Dr. Scoular answered that this objection had no bearing on the question, in so far as it was a question of grammar, not of physiology. Mr. Crawford also endeavoured to show that in the Celtic languages words traced to the Aryan were derived from

the Latin by means of the early Roman missionaries. To this Dr. Scoular replied that the Irish numerals had far more affinity with the Latin than those of the Welsh, while the latter were in daily contact with the Romans when the Irish had no other influence than through a few missionaries; in fact, some of the Irish numerals had more affinity to the Greek than to the Latin. Also, that the supposed Latin words quoted by Mr. Crawford were more easily derived from the Aryan than the Latin. Besides, there were a great number of Aryan words in Irish which did not exist in the Latin, and could not be derived from that source. But Mr. Crawford virtually abandoned his own theory when he was compelled to admit that the Sclavonic languages had borrowed from the Sanscrit or Aryan; and the idea that the Sanscrit in the Greek was derived from the Persians, and communicated by the Greeks to the Latins, was a sufficiently wild hypothesis, as we know that the epics of Homer were composed long before the Persian invasion of Asia Minor. These observations of Mr. Crawford would appear to have misled Sir Charles Lyell, who had fallen into the additional mistake of imagining that the laws of the Aryan tongue applied to every other language. Dr. Scoular observed that languages did not graduate into each other as Sir Charles Lyell imagined, but there were groups of languages with which transition was almost impossible, as in the Aryan, Shemitic, and Chinese. The principal object of Dr. Scoular's remarks, as above indicated, was to show that the advocates of transmutationism, when they seek for proofs, or at least analogies in favour of their doctrine, have misunderstood the subject, and merely intruded their own vague and superficial opinions.

NO. XXII.

SUGGESTIONS OF OBJECTS OF ARCHEOLOGICAL INTEREST IN THE WEST OF SCOTLAND:

BY

COSMO INNES, Esq.

[Read at a Meeting of the Society held at Glasgow on 29th January, 1864.]

A STRANGER coming from the quiet atmosphere in which I dwell, and landing in the whirl and clang of your great city, is apt to be surprised that any of you can shut out the pressure of business, the excitement of mercantile adventure, so as to give his mind, for even a short time, to objects of literature or science, still more to our peculiar study, which very practical men for the most part regard as trifling.

And yet Glasgow is pre-eminently a place for the study of antiquities, were it only to enable you to compare your present and past state-to look back to the little rural village clustered beneath your grey cathedral-to the days when your University had not yet shed learning and science over the land-when your river flowed clear and unpolluted to the sea-when foreign trade was unthought ofwhen the biggest vessels at the Broomielaw were gabbarts from the lochs within the Mull-when cotton was an unknown word-when men had not dug for iron nor even for coal; and to contrast your present city, its "streets of palaces and walks of state," the crowd of busy commerce in Argyle Street, the miles of masts on both sides of your river, the wealth and splendour of your houses and manner of living-to compare Glasgow past and Glasgow present!

It is owing partly to the fine building material among which your city stands; but it appears to me to be by far a nobler town-speaking of its streets and buildings-than any of the great emporiums of England. But the streets and buildings are the least part: knowing as I do something of its past history, I have always considered the growth and rise of Glasgow and its trade as the most remarkable of any city in the world.