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 The Thames

at least the interest of villagers in their mills sufficed to the watching of the stream.

We have in the place names upon the Thames a further evidence of the antiquity of its regulation, for, as will be seen in a moment, none give proof of any important settlement later than the eleventh century.

These place names not only indicate a continuous and early settlement of the banks, but also form in themselves a very interesting series, whose etymology is a little section of the history of England.

Of purely Celtic names very few survive in the sites of human habitation, though the names of the waterways are almost universally Celtic, as is the name of Thames itself. But it is probable that in the Saxon names which line the river there are many corruptions of Celtic words made to sound in the Saxon fashion. We cannot prove such origins. We can surmise with justice that the " tons " and " dons " all up and down England are Celtic terminations ; they are almost unknown in Germany. There is a somewhat pedantic guess, drawn (it is said) from Iceland, that we got this national name ending from Scandinavia ; so universal a habit would hardly have arisen from an admixture of Scandinavian blood received at the very close of the Dark Ages and affect- ing but small patches of North England. Moreover, as against this theory, there is the fact that quite half the Celtic

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