Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 1.djvu/562

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NOTES AND QUERIES. oo* s. i. JUNE n,

The new bridge, which still exists, was built at the joint expense of the counties of Essex and Middlesex, under an Act of Parliament passed in 1834, and work was actually commenced in April, 1835. The plans for the new bridge were prepared by Messrs. Walker & Burgess, and the esti- mated cost was 11,0002. It is built of Aberdeen and other granite, and has a single span of 64 ft., with a clear water headway of about 7ft., and a width between the parapets of 40ft. The work was com- pleted in January, 1838.

Since that date the traffic has, of course, increased enormously in the neighbourhood, and it has again been found necessary to make more ample provision for it. The London County Council and the Corporation of West Ham, the two authorities now concerned with the matter, have accordingly widened the roadway. The widening will no doubt be a very great convenience to the public, but it is to be hoped that the " improvement," as a matter of convenience, will not at the same time entirely efface the symmetrical beauty of the bridge itself.

The work, which was in progress last autumn, has doubtless now been finished, but I have not had the opportunity of seeing it. (Cf. Archaeologia, vol. xxvii., and Trans- actions of the Institution of Civil Engineers, vol. iii. p. 343, with plates.)

H. W. UNDERDOWN.

"SANGUIS": ITS DERIVATION.

(See 9 th S. xii. 481.) IN this paper an attempt is made to connect sanguis etymologically with another group of Latin words, with the Greek cu/*a, and with other Greek terms all mainly belong- ing to the religious sphere. My theory is that these words are not, in the strict sense of the term, Indo-European, but belong to the Mediterranean peoples, who were invaded by, and who ultimately adopted the speech of, North European conquerors. The latter in their turn were affected by the civilization and religion of the vanquished. To which of these two antagonistic race elements in the Mediterranean area the Pelasgi belonged is a question which I leave untouched; but beyond the doubtful northern fringe of the welter of mixed folk, and constantly thrust- ing itself into their midst, was a nomad people, possessing in common certain charac- teristics of race, of speech, of religion, of culture, and of manners (I will not add of physique), which differentiated them from their neighbours. This congeries of tribes

is known as the Celts, who played a rdle in prehistoric Europe not unlike that of the Arab in later times and more southern lands. Such of these tribes as had settled among the highly civilized folk of the Mediterranean area found themselves in the presence of a culture where virtus had already trodden its usual path to vertii. Virility had yielded to- the languor induced by a too genial clime, and that languor tinged even the speech of its victims.

I do not know if keener observers will bear me out, but ray own somewhat limited ex- perience leads me to believe that natives of the sunny South are more prone to exhale the smoke of their cigars and cigarettes through the nasal passage than is the case with us who dwell beneath gloomier skies. The habit referred to is a very repellent one to me personally; but if I am right in my conjecture, it seems to point to an older practice of using the uvula to close the oral passage, and uttering sounds through the neighbouring nasal one. The sounds thus uttered would of course be m and n. Closely allied with these are the " voiced " labials, b and d. I infer, then, that the velar guttural qv would in the Mediterranean area develope into labialism, and that the Northern tribes who penetrated into that area would adopt it, and those settled nearest the centre of the Mediterranean civilization, more rapidly than the more Western settlers e.g., the Hellenes than the Italians. Of the Celtic fringe, the tribes that came into closer con- tact with the Mediterraneanized peoples would be exposed to this influence, while those more remote would be free from it. Again, certain tribes, even among those who were settled within the sphere of labial in- fluence, would, from one cause or another, show more resistance to that influence than others, as we may see in Italy, where the Latins remained on the "Indo-European" level in this respect. Taking the Eastern Mediterranean, then, with Crete at its heart, as the home of labialism, we find at its western door the Sicilian Zancle as a topo- graphical name equivalent to the more eastern Samos and Same. Zancle, we are told by Thucydides, is a Siculan word for a sickle. There is every reason to believe that that is correct, but place-names of that kind are a prominent feature of Hellas. Zancle, secula (Campanian), and sickle show a sorb of vowel gradation which can be paralleled in Sicily itself. There we have Zancle, Segesta, Siculi and Sicani, and on the opposite side of the strait S[i]cylla. Sicylla would be the exact equivalent of sibylla. No doubt sibylla