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ETYMOLOGICAL GEOGRAPHY;

BEING A

CLASSIFIED LIST

OF

TERMS OF MOST FREQUENT OCCURRENCE,

ENTERING, AS

PREFIXES OR POSTFIXES,

INTO THE

COMPOSITION OF GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES.

INTENDED FOR THE USE OF TEACHERS, AND ADVANCED STUDENTS OF GEOGRAPHY,
AND AS A REFERENCE-BOOK IN GEOGRAPHICAL ETYMOLOGIES.

By T. A. GIBSON,

MASTER OF CAUVIN'S HOSPITAL, AND AUTHOR OF "A FRENCH,
ENGLISH, AND LATIN VOCABULARY."

EDINBURGH:

OLIVER & BOYD; STIRLING & KENNEY; AND
ALEXANDER MACREDIE;

SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, & CO.; WHITTAKER & CO., LONDON; AND

JOHN CUMMING, DUBLIN.

MDCCCXXXV.

1252,40

EDINBURGH:

PRINTED BY H. & J. PILLANS, 7. JAMES'S COURT.

ΤΟ

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

SIR JOHN SINCLAIR, OF ULBSTER, BART.

WHOSE GENIUS ORIGINATED,

AND

TO THE CLERGY OF SCOTLAND,

BY WHOSE PATRIOTIC COOPERATION HE WAS

ENABLED TO COMPLETE,

"THE STATISTICAL ACCOUNT OF SCOTLAND,"

A Work, which has established the literary and scientific, as well as the religious and moral, character of that Venerable Body, beyond all competition; and which claims, in a peculiar manner, the gratitude of every lover of his species, from the comprehensive variety of its important practical suggestions, with a view to improve the moral and physical condition of the people ;

THIS ETYMOLOGICAL GEOGRAPHY,

In consideration of the many useful Hints derived from that Work, in the department of Scottish Etymologies,

IS INSCRIBED, WITH MUCH RESPECT,

BY THE AUTHOR.

PREFACE.

THIS Manual is intended to supply what the Author has long considered a desideratum in all compilations of Geography; it does not in the least supersede, but is supplementary to them.

All Geographical names, however obscure, ambiguous, and in many cases unattainable the knowledge of their component parts may now be, conveyed originally a meaning, arising from some peculiarity of appearance, situation, or other circumstance. Much has, of late years, been done towards facilitating to the youthful mind the knowledge of the etymologies of words, by which a spirit of enquiry into their original import has been very successfully engendered. This process, from which undoubted advantages have resulted to other branches of knowledge, has been but partially applied to Geography, though this seems to be the department upon which the light of Etymology can be brought to shed its strongest rays.

Throughout the work, the Author has not failed to give to Geographical Names in the British Islands that decided prominence, which their relative importance to the Youth of these countries seems to claim. In investigating those Names, many Continental ones, identically the same in meaning, but differing slightly in orthography and pro

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