33 See J. Samuelson, _Views of the Deity, Traditional and Scientific_, p. 144. Williams & Norgate, 1871. 34 “It has already been implied that the Aborigines of Tasmania had acquired very limited powers of abstraction or generalization. They possessed no words representing abstract ideas; for each variety of gum-tree and wattle-tree, etc., etc., they had a name, but they had no equivalent for the expression, ‘a tree;’ neither could they express abstract qualities, such as hard, soft, warm, cold, long, short, round, etc.; for ‘hard’ they would say ‘like a stone;’ for ‘tall’ they would say ‘long legs,’ etc.; for ‘round’ they said ‘like a ball,’ ‘like the moon,’ and so on, usually suiting the action to the word, and confirming by some sign the meaning to be understood.” Milligan, _Vocabulary of the Dialects of some of the Aboriginal Tribes of Tasmania_, p. 34. Hobart Town, 1866. 35 If Signer Ascoli blames me for deriving _Niobe_ with other names for snow from the root _snu_, instead of from the root _snigh_, this can only be due to an oversight. I am responsible for the derivation of Niobe, and for the admission of a secondary root _snyu_ or _nyu_, and so far I may be either right or wrong. But Signer Ascoli ought to have known that the derivation of Gothic _snáiv-s_, Old High-German _snéo_, or _snê_, gen. _snêwê-s_, Lithuanian _snèga-s_, Slav, _snjeg_, Hib. _sneachd_, from the root _snu_, rests on the authority of Bopp (_Glossarium_, 1847, s. v. snu; see also Grimm, _Deutsche Grammatik_, ii. p. 700). He ought likewise to have known that in 1852 Professor Schweizer-Siedler, in his review of Bötticher’s _Arica_ (Kuhn’s _Zeitschrift_, i. p. 479), had pointed out that _snigh_ may be considered as a secondary root by the side of _snu_ and _snâ_ (cf. σμάω, σμήχω; ψάω, ψήχω; νάω, νήχω). The real relation of _snu_ to _snigh_ had been explained as early as 1842 by Benfey, _Wurzellexicon_, ii. p. 54; and Signor Ascoli was no doubt aware of what Professor Curtius had written on the relation of _snigh_ to _snu_ (_Grundzüge der Greichischen Etymologie_, p. 297). Signor Ascoli has certainly shown with greater minuteness than his predecessors that not only Zend _snizh_ and Lithuanian _snêga-s_, but likewise Gothic _snaiv-s_, Greek νίφει, Latin nix, nĭv-is, and ninguis, may be derived from _snigh_; but if from _snigh_, a secondary development of the root _snu_, we can arrive at νίφ-α and at νίβα, the other steps that lead on to Niobe will remain just the same. 36 At the end of the hymn the poet says:— χαῖρε, ἄναξ, πρόφρων δὲ βίον θυμήρε᾽ ὄπαζε; ἐκ σέο δ᾽ ἀρξάμενος κλῄσω μερόπων γένος ἀνδρῶν ἡμιθέων, ὦν ἔργα θεοὶ θνητοῖσιν ἔδειξαν.