the third solution of the question; viz., that the areas, greater or sınaller, on which the coral reefs rest as a foundation-the flooring, in fact, of the seas-must have undergone progressive subsidence, such as utterly to withdraw islands or large tracts of land below the surface of the ocean, leaving the coral reefs which encirled or fringed their shores still on the water's level, and therefore under circumstances fitted to sustain their growth and position, even where the sinking of the foundation beneath them further continued. We must admit this hypothesis to be a bold and startling one, and such it appeared in the outset even to the most hardy of our geologists; yet it has rapidly gained ground, not merely as the only one fulfilling the conditions required, but further because it well illustrates the different modifications and peculiarities of the coral reefs, and accords at the same time with certain remarkable discoveries which have distinguished the progress of modern geology. Mr. Darwin's application of his views in detail is characterised by great ability; but we can afford room only for a summary of the few leading points.

Taking the theory first in its application to the atoll, or simple coral islet with its interior lagoon-instead of making this lagoon to represent a pre-existing cavity of the same form, as in the volcanic hypothesis, Mr. Darwin considers that it designates the place once occupied by a point of land more or less elevated, which has subsided downwards into the sea, leaving the coral reef circling round the centre, growing over its surface, and rising upwards by new constructions, where the subsidence has still continued. Let a mountain peak, like Tahiti, girt round with a coralreef, sink downwards, from subsidence of the submarine area or other cause, and we should have the conditions just described taking place; and representing, by the various aspects of these islands, the stages of change from the lofty mountain to a few low points of land in the lagoon, and then to the simple coral islet, barely rising out of the sea. Let the subsidence elsewhere be sudden, instead of gradual-and we should find submerged atolls, like the Chagos Bank; the power of replacement upwards being lost by the depth to which the surface has sunk below the sea.

Next, as to the linear reefs, such as the great barrier fronting the N.E. Australian continent. We have already alluded to the intimate relation of these to the reefs encircling islands; and we shall find the conditions of the theory applying to both in the same manner, and with equal probability. Suppose a prolonged line of reef to be built up on the shelf of the coast, as it declines into the sea, leaving a narrow channel of water between. If the continental land gradually sinks, the line of coast will recede inwards,

leaving

leaving a wider channel between it and the reef-the latter retaining its position, and being continually replaced upwards by fresh coral, as the lower portions of the mass subside. Sectional sketches would better illustrate these points; but even without such aid, we think there will be no difficulty in conceiving them; or in further applying the same views to the other peculiarities of these formations-the precipitous descent to vast depths of the outer side of the reef-the isles within the channel, seen as residual points of the old continent-the fringing reefs-the openings into the channels or lagoons, &c.

We have spoken of this as a bold hypothesis; and it will not appear less so when we look at the magnitudes, both of space and time, which are involved in such interpretation of the facts. The extent it is needful to assign to some of the areas of subsidence may well alarm an imagination not accustomed to deal with these subjects. Spaces of many hundred thousand square miles exist in the ocean, occupied by coral isles of such description as to admit of no other valid explanation than the sinking of the bottom of the sea over this extent. The length of the Australian barrier reef, 1200 miles, proves that at least an equivalent line of coast has been subsiding since its formation began. The same inference extends to the great island of New Caledonia, in relation to the reef half encircling it. Mr. Darwin has delineated these several areas, as far as at present known, in a map prefixed to his work; adding to its value by designating also the areas of upheaval in the same oceans; and the sites of active volcanoes, which, it may be, interpret some of the actions concerned in these phenomena. For both these great events, of subsidence and upheaval of the solid crust of the globe, are familiar to the speculations of modern geology, and variously attested in different parts of the globe by facts which, though recent in discovery, are unequivocal in the inferences they afford. The magnitude of these movements and changes may seem inconsistent with our ephemeral experience; but here, as in so many other cases, we are compelled to adopt new measures of time and space, when dealing with the physical conditions of the globe before man became a tenant of its surface.

If there be areas of upheaval as well as of subsidence in these coral seas, we may expect to find coral islands raised in places above the level at which these zoophytes effect their works. Accordingly, we have instances furnished by Captain Beechey, Mr. Jukes, and others, of coral masses some hundred feet above the sea; with the same assurance of their having been raised from below, that we possess in the case of any tertiary stratum containing sea-shells. In connexion with this topic, however, we must notice one objection to Mr. Darwin's views, which may seem to have some force, viz.,

that

that if masses of coral of such enormous thickness exist under the sea, we might fully expect to discover them in some situation or other among the great strata of the globe; knowing, as we do, how large a portion of these have been submarine in origin, and raised afterwards into their present position.-Admitting the weight of the objection, that no such coral masses are found on our continents, we may qualify it by remarking, first, that we are not assured as to the relative period in the records of creation when the reefbuilding corals began their work in the seas; secondly, that it is not impossible that some of the great oolitic, cretaceous, or other calcareous formations may actually represent coral deposits— formed as these are by the agglutination of various materials, and exposed for ages to physical conditions of which we can scarcely appreciate all the effect; and thirdly, that the geological character of the lands in the coral oceans is still very imperfectly known, and we may yet discover such masses at greater elevation than any yet found, and exhibiting perchance gradations yet unsuspected into the character of the older calcareous rocks.

ART. VII.-English Etymologies. By H. Fox Talbot, Esq. 8vo. London, 1846.

WI

WITHOUT venturing to say of Etymology what South said of the study of the Apocalypse, that it found a man mad or made him so,' we may say there is no walk of literature in which there have been exhibited more portentous aberrations from common sense. With whatever respect or wonder we may regard the labours of the modern Germans, who, as our readers are aware, have pushed their researches and theories more widely, as well as more systematically, than either the French or English Etymologists, we do not see that, as regards Europe, even they have added much to our stock of useful information. They have shown, no doubt, more extensive coincidences between the Northern and the Southern, and between them and certain Eastern languages, than had before been developed; but the earlier Etymologists proceeded generally on the same principle, though they had not worked it out in the same detail; and we must confess that we cannot concur in some of the theories built on this development, nor if we did, should we estimate their value so highly as young students are apt to do. However brilliant or startling, as we admit they sometimes are, they seem to us to lead to no practical conclusion; nay, to leave the origin of nations and their dialects in greater perplexity, if possible, than they were

before;

before; they show us so many lights that we know not which points to the safe channel. Take, for instance, the Essay of Jäkel, briefly reviewed in our 92nd Number, in which he maintains that to the Teutonic race and tongue must be referred the origin of the Roman people and language. His facts, if admitted, could only prove some relationship, and afford no more reason to conclude that the Romans borrowed from the Teutons than the Teutons from the Romans. That there are strong affinities, and many striking analogies between languages, ancient and modern, that have at first glance scarce a point of connexion, is indisputable— and the Germans have worked that mine with great assiduity, and perhaps as much success as is attainable;-but which dialect approaches nearest the original source, where and what that source was, how the streams came to be separated or how and in what proportions mingled, are questions that will probably never be solved till the great mystery of Babel shall be elucidated. The further the theory of the identity of languages is carried, the greater, in fact, becomes the difficulty of understanding the separation. All, we suspect, that can now be reasonably looked for are corroborations of the theory of a primitive tongue meandering into different dialects, which exhibit, even when apparently remote, indications more or less strong-more or less frequentof their descent from a common but unascertainable source.

When Dr. Johnson, in the Isle of Skye, called language 'the pedigree of nations' (Bos., ii. 448), he meant it of their broad and distinctive characteristics :-" -If you find the same language in distant countries, you may be sure that the inhabitants of each have been the same people; that is to say, a good deal of it the same; for a word here and there being the same will not do;'and he went on to ridicule the bringing distant nations together -the Lydians, for instance, and Highlanders-the Patagonians and the Welsh-by the identity or consonance of particular words. It would, in truth, have puzzled the Doctor to point out anything more generally perplexing and unsatisfactory than the soberest labours of the etymologists, or anything more absurd than, we may almost say, the majority of their prolusions. The fault is not altogether with the authors-it is in a considerable degree inherent in the nature of such inquiries. The variety of inflections that the human tongue has indubitably given to sounds originally the same, opened a wide door to rational conjecture:journal from dies, alms from eleemosyna, bishop from episcopus, hatchment from achever, and the like, are examples which encourage even cautious inquirers-baits by which more sanguine guessers may be induced to swallow anything; and the pleasantry of deriving cucumber from Jeremiah King is scarcely more

extravagant

extravagant than instances that could be produced from worddissectors of the gravest pretensions. Any one who takes the trouble to inquire after their elementary rules or what are called principles, will see that from the Discours sur la Science de l'Etymologie' by Father Besnier, prefixed to Menage, down to the modern prefaces of Thomson and Whiter, they all, through a heap of bold facts and a cloud of obscure dissertation, arrive at this simple postulate and axiom of their science -that every vowel may be, for etymological purposes and under certain circumstances, counter-changed with any other vowel and almost every consonant with any other consonant in the alphabet. Vocales omnes in omnibus linguis facile invicem commutantur. Consonantes fere omnes inter se in hâc aut in illâ linguâ aliquando cedunt' says old Skinner (Proleg. xlvii.). And this capricious canon really holds true to a very surprising degree, for there are to be found in all languages (as in the examples we have just quoted) very extraordinary yet very indubitable transmutations of letters in the mouths of men: but we need not remark the wild latitude that such a principle opens to the fanciful etymologist-and what etymologist is not fanciful? But even this latitude does not satisfy them all. Mr. Whiter, who published some twenty or thirty years ago an Etymological Essay in two quarto volumes,* goes a step further; he totally rejects the vowels as 'altogether useless and indeed hurtful to the art of the etymologist,' who must, he says, only look to the consonantsand not to all consonants, but only to

cognate consonants. He should acquire the habit of viewing words in their abstract state freed from those circumstances [i. e. the different forms of letters] by which their difference of appearance is produced, and under which disguise their mutual affinity has been hitherto concealed.'- Whiter, vol. i. p. 9.

This mode of abstraction reminds us of Crambe's mode of arriving at the abstract idea of a Lord Mayor, by depriving him not merely of his gold chain and furred gown, but of stature, feature, colour, hands, feet, or even body.' Mr. Whiter's plan, we have no doubt, would be equally successful—for if you take any two words and deprive them of all the vowels and of all the consonants that do not seem to the artist to be cognate with his object, the residua, we suppose, will not be very distinguishable from each other, and fire and frost, black and white, Patagonia and Gla

Etymologicon Universale, or Universal Etymological Dictionary, on a new plan, in which it is shown that Consonants are alone to be regarded in discovering the Affinities of Words, and that the Vowels are to be wholly rejected; that Languages contain the same fundamental idea; and that they are derived from the Earth,' &c. &c. morganshire,