I had in the second volume of my Lectures called attention to a curious parallelism in the changes of meaning in certain names of trees and in the changes of vegetation recorded in the strata of the earth. My facts were these. Foraha in Old High German, Föhre in modern German, furh in Anglo-Saxon, fir in English, signify the pinus silvestris. In the Lombard Laws the same word fereha means oak, and so does its corresponding word in Latin, quercus.
Secondly, φηγός in Greek means oak, the corresponding word in Latin, fagus, and in Gothic, bôka, means beech.
That is to say, in certain Aryan languages we find words meaning fir, assuming the meaning of oak; and words meaning oak, assuming the name of beech.
Now in the North of Europe geologists find that a vegetation of fir exists at the lowest depth of peat deposits; that this was succeeded by a vegetation of oak, and this by a vegetation of beech. Even in the lowest stratum a stone implement was found under a fir, showing the presence of human beings.
Putting these two sets of facts together, I said: Is it possible to explain the change of meaning in one word which meant fir and came to mean oak, and in another which meant oak and came to mean beech, by the change of vegetation which actually took place in early ages? I said it was an hypothesis, and an hypothesis only. I pointed out myself all that seemed doubtful in it, but I thought that the changes of meaning and the parallel changes of vegetation required an explanation, and until a better one could be given, I ventured to suggest that such changes of meaning were as the shadows cast on language by real, though prehistoric, events.
I asked for an impartial examination of the facts I had collected, and of the theory I had based on them. What do I receive from Professor Whitney? I must quote his ipsissima verba, to show the spirit that pervades his arguments:—
“It will not be difficult,” he says, “to gratify our author by refuting his hypothesis. Not the very slightest shade of plausibility, that we can discover, belongs to it. Besides the serious minor objections to which it is liable, it involves at least three impossible suppositions, either one of which ought to be enough to insure its rejection.
“In the first place it assumes that the indications afforded by the peat-bogs of Denmark are conclusive as regards the condition of Europe—of all that part of it, at least, which is occupied by the Germanic and Italic races; that, throughout this whole region, firs, oaks, and beeches have supplanted and succeeded each other, notwithstanding that we find all of them, or two of them, still growing peaceably together in many countries.”
Here Professor Whitney is, as usual, ploughing with my heifer. I said:—
“I must leave it to the geologist and botanist to determine whether the changes of vegetation as described above, took place in the same rotation over the whole of Europe, or in the North only,”