presents the Vilela isip, the Lule is, and the Chiquito ees, all meaning 'hand'. They are, however, too few and too isolated to build much upon.

The preceding list of North American terms seems to shew that a single word, under forms and meanings so varied as to prove the antiquity of its use, may be traced in all parts of the country with the exception of the frigid regions of the north. Its most northern representatives (next to the Slave siulah, 'hand').appear to be the Takulli osha, 'feet', in British Columbia, about 54° N. lat., and the Cree or Knistinaux ahsik,' five' (in negoto ahsik, 'six'), and sap, 'ten' (in nesoosap, twelve', etc.), about the same parallel, between Hudson's Bay and the Rocky Mountains. Now, if we cross the Pacific on this parallel of 54° from America to Asia, and then turn towards the south till we arrive at the same latitude as the Isthmus of Panama, we shall meet with several terms like those observed in America, in both form and sense. The coincidence may mean nothing, but it exists, as may be seen from the following words, where some of the American 'fives', being 'fives' in composition only, are marked by a hyphen prefixed, as is also the Cree -sap, '-teen' :

Leaving for the present the eastern side of the Old World, we next bring under review, in proceeding with the consideration of this 'five', a language on its western side, divided from North America by the Atlantic instead of the Pacific Ocean. This language is the Basque, the most ancient surviving language of Spain. Here we meet with these three words :-atz, 'finger'; bat, 'one'; and zazpi, 'seven'; as well as with bi, 'two'. Now it is a law of the Basque language, that b is changed into p when it follows

1 For the m- prefix, see note, p. 9.

a sibilant. If, then, zaz were combined with bi, the resulting compound would not be zazbi, but zazpi, which is the Basque for 'seven'. Since therefore bi is 'two' in Basque, and since 'seven', as may have been perceived already, is commonly resolvable into 'five-two' or 'two-five', we may legitimately infer that zaz-, in the Basque zazpi, 'seven',

=

would probably 'five'. We should consequently derive from the Basque these three terms :

atz, 'finger'.

bat, 'one', i. e. 'finger'.

=

zaz, 'five,' ' hand,' = 'fingers,' 'finger-finger'.

=

But this is nearly the same as the result derived from the North American languages, which was (p. 7):

az, 'finger'.

baz, 'finger'.

azbaz, 'five, hand, fingers' ='finger-finger'.

It is true that the second of these 'fingers', bat or baz, is not explicitly found in Biscay, but is deduced from the existence of the Basque bat, 'one'. In North America, however, we discover the Sekumne biti, 'toe, fingers', and such words as the Pawnee has-peet, fingers', the Wallawalla (Oregon) na-pit, 'two', and the Etchemin (Maine) pet-in, 'hand'. And, besides this, a similar word for 'finger' does actually exist in other languages not yet noticed; a fact which helps us to extend the field of primeval affinity, and to find an origin for several more numerals :Catawba ......eekseeah, 'finger'.

:

Van Eys, Essai de Grammaire de la Langue Basque, p. 10 (2nd Ed.)

The Lazic (Caucasian) 'ten', or 'hands', is thus the same as the Lapponic (Finnish) 'five', or 'hand'. The initial X element in the sixes' just cited seems clearly, from such Finnish numerals as wiis, five', k-uus, 'six', to have the force of one', and would thus probably be akin to the Hungarian (Finnish) egy, the Abkhasian (Caucasian) aka, and the Sanskrit (Aryan) eka, which all mean 'one', as also the Basque iká would do in ama-iká, eleven', for ama- = Basque amar, 'ten'. The Hebrew echad and other Semitic 'ones' might be added to the list. But a more important case of affinity would next result. For if we take the two completest forms of the Aryan 'six', which are the Zend kh-svas and the Ossetic ach-saz or ach-säz; and if we suppose kh- or ach- to be 'one', which the prevalence of the previous x ones, and the fact that six is commonly one-five or five-one would lead us to do; it would then follow that Aryan languages virtually contain the forms svas and saz for 'five', as the Basque contains zaz, and as North American languages contain forms like azbaz, such as the Natchez ispeshe, 'hand', and the Pawnee -shabish, 'five', the component elements of which, az and baz, each implying 'finger', have been already recognised in the Basque atz, ‘finger', and the Breton bez, finger'.

We are not, however, without further evidence that such a word as svas, 'hand', was in the original Aryan vocabulary, especially if we take into consideration words derived from 'hand', like the English handy and handle, the German handel, handeln, and handlung, and the French manier. For the following terms are all in Aryan languages :

spas, serve, observe, behold'.

Vedic Sanskrit ...spaç, 'perform'.