279. Peter Plancius' Map of the World.
—In M. Blundevill his Exercises, containing Eight Treatises, 6th edition, 4to., 1622, one of the eight is described thus:
Item. A plaine and full description of Peter Plancius his universall Mappe lately set forth in the yeare of our Lord 1592, containing more places newly found, as well in the East and West Indies, as also towards the North Pole, which no other Mappe heretofore hath."
Where is this Peter Plancius' map to be found?
J. O. M.
280. Derivation of Theodolite.
—Can any of your correspondents give the derivation of theodolite? I fear that θεάομαι δολος might be considered a libel.
J. S. WOOD.
281. Lycian Inscriptions.
—I should be glad to hear what attempts have been made, and with what success, to decipher the inscriptions upon the Lycian monuments in the British Museum. Col. Mure, in his History of Grecian Literature, vol. i. p. 84., speaks of them as at present unintelligible. The character, he says, is a variety of the Græco-Phœnician. I find several, if not the greater part, of the letters in Gesenius's Monumenta Phœnicia, especially Tab. 11. and 12. What is the language in which they are written? And if an aboriginal tongue, over what portion of Asia did the stock to which it belongs extend in the historical period, and what is that stock? Is it to that class of dialects that the language of the Gods, as Homer distinguishes a certain tongue from the language of men, belongs: which called the "night-jar" χαλκίς, named by men κύμινδις (Il. 14. 291.); and "the giant" Βριάρεως, instead of Αἰγαίων (Il. 1. 403.); and "the Xanthus, Ξάνθος, instead of Σκάμανδρος; and, which is more remarkable still, "the hillock" on the plain of Troy, the σῆμα πολυσκάρθμοιο Μυρίνης, while men named it Βατίεια (Il. 2. 813.) I have hitherto been accustomed to consider these names which the gods use to be the old Pelasgian names, assured as I feel that the Pelasgi occupied the north-west corner of Asia Minor before the Greeks (Hellenes) took Troy, which event I have looked upon as one of many in which the energies and [ ... ] of the young and vigorous Hellenic family were successfully exerted against their contemporaries of the other less powerful descendants of the old Pelasgic settlers in that part of the world. But I shall be thankful for the information which others wiser than I can give, even if it be but a theory: accompanied with the facts on which it is based, it will be worth attention.