upon British Ethnology, 195
less on the eastern coast of Scotland, as far north as Aber-
deen. Mr. Taylor remarks that the words inver and aber,
which both mean a confluence of waters, are useful test-
words in discriminating between the two Celtic families, inver
being the Gaelic word and aber the Brythonic. And he notes
that if we draw a line from a point a little south of Inverary
to another a little north of Aberdeen, we shall find that, with
a few exceptions, the invers lie north-west of the line and the
abers to the south-east of it.11 In Ireland he remarks that
the Erse or Gaelic word bally, a town, occurs in 2000 names,
while it is unknown in Wales and Brittany. And in Scotland
bally abounds in the inver district, while it is extremely rare
among the abers. But, though these test-words probably give
a true notion of the amount of territory over which Brythonic
influence prevailed, it must be remembered that we can learn
nothing from them or other language tests as to the pro-
portion of Brythons, by race, to Goidels and pre-Celtic
peoples, in the districts speaking a Brythonic tongue.
In the middle of the 4th century, b.c., Britain was visited
by the famous explorer Pytheas,12 whose expedition was fitted
out by the Greek merchants of Marseilles with a view of
enabling them to open out a trade in tin and amber with the
northern nations. Pytheas does not seem to have visited
Western Britain. In the south east he saw an abundance of
wheat in the fields, and notices the necessity of threshing it
out in covered barns on account of the rainy climate. After
the return of Pytheas a trade appears to have been opened
between Britain and the Continent, not between Cornwall
and Brittany, but between Kent and the nearest part of Gaul.
Mr. Elton remarks that the Celts may have brought in the
knowledge of iron and silver : the continental Celts being
known to have used iron broadswords at the battle of the
Anio in the 4th century b. c. (361 b.c.), and iron having been
worked in Sussex by the Britons in the time of Julius Caesar,
11 Mr. Skene ('Celtic Scotland,' vol. i., p. 221) differs to some extent
from Mr. Taylor as to the distribution of inver and aber. Also on that
of pen and ben.
12 See Elton's 'Origins of English History,' chap. i.