C. B. EDINBURGH, _July 1887_. INTRODUCTION Among the branches of human speculation that, in recent times, have walked out of the misty realm of conjecture into the firm land of science, and from the silent chamber of the student into the breezy fields of public life, there are few more interesting than Etymology. For as words are the common counters, or coins rather, with which we mark our points in all the business and all the sport of life, any man whose curiosity has not been blunted by familiarity, will naturally find a pleasure in understanding what the image and superscription on these markers mean; and amongst words there are none that so powerfully stimulate this curiosity as the names of persons and places. About these the intelligent interest of young persons is often prominently manifested; and it is a sad thing when parents or teachers, who should be in a position to gratify this interest, are obliged to waive an eager intelligence aside, and by repeated negations to repel the curiosity which they ought to have encouraged. Geography indeed, a subject full of interest to the young mind, has too often been taught in such a way as neither to delight the imagination with vivid pictures, nor to stimulate inquiry by a frequent reference to the history of names; and this is an evil which, if found to a certain extent in all countries, is particularly rank in Great Britain, where the language of the country is composed of fragments of half a dozen languages, which only the learned understand, and which, to the ear of the many, have no more significance than if they were Hebrew or Coptic. The composite structure of our English speech, in fact, tends to conceal from us the natural organism of language; so that in our case, it requires a special training to make us fully aware of the great truth announced by Horne Tooke, that “in language there is nothing arbitrary.” Nevertheless, the curiosity about the meaning of words, though seldom cherished, is not easily extinguished; and, in this age of locomotion, there are few scraps of information more grateful to the intelligent tourist than those which relate to the significance of topographical names. When, for instance, the London holiday-maker, in his trip to the West Highlands, setting foot in one of Mr. Hutchinson’s steamboats at Oban, on his way to the historic horrors of Glencoe, finds on his larboard side a long, low island, green and treeless, called _Lismore_, he will be pleased, no doubt, at first by simply hearing so euphonious a word in a language that he had been taught to believe was harsh and barbarous, but will be transported into an altogether different region of intelligent delight when he is made to understand that this island is wholly composed of a vein of limestone, found only here in the midst of a wide granitic region skirted with