2nd. There is the area which was originally Sarmatian falling into—
a. The Lithuanic, and—
b. The Slavonic districts.
3rd. There is the tract which was originally Keltic.
4th. The parts whose original ethnology is uncertain.
The details of the different political divisions supply us with the commentary on this classification.
Prussia.—The kingdom of Prussia well illustrates the difficulty of making ethnology and politics agree. It falls into two parts separated from each other. Of these the first, with the possible exception of its south-western corner, was wholly Sarmatian in the tenth century; as Sarmatian as England was Keltic, or Spain Iberic. The population, too, was referable to both branches of the Sarmatian stock—the Slavonic as well as the Lithuanic.
In East Prussia it is easily seen that the geographical names are not German. Neither are they Russian. The Old Prussian, a member of the Lithuanic family of languages, was spoken here as late as the sixteenth century, remains of which, in the shape of a catechism, are extant. This is the language of the ancient Æstyi, or Men of the East, which Tacitus says was akin to the British, an error arising from the similarity of name, since a Slavonian (if such were the original source of his information) would call the two languages by names so like as Prytskaia and Brytskaia, and a German (if the authority were Germanic) by names so like as Pryttisc and Bryttisc. The Guttones, too, of Pliny, whose locality is fixed from the fact of their having been collectors of the amber of East Prussia and Courland, were of the same stock. The name by which they were known to the Slavonians within the historical period was Guddon=Gothones, Guttones.
In West Prussia the extermination or amalgamation of the native Lithuanians was earlier. We have no specimens of their language. We know, however, that the country took its name from them. They seem to have been the most western members of their family. The southern frontier of the present Prussia is Polish.
Prussian Poland—the Duchy of Posen—is now, as it always has been, Sarmatian, Slavonic, Lekh, Lygian.