speak with strict accuracy on the point, but Celtic names in Scotland
must outnumber all the rest by nearly ten to one." Even in counties
where the Gaelic tongue is now quite obsolete (_e.g._ in Fife, in
Forfar, in the Mearns, and in parts of Aberdeenshire), the place-names
are almost entirely Celtic. The region where English place-names abound
is, of course, the Lothians; but scarcely an English place-name is
definitely known to have existed, even in the Lothians, before the
Norman Conquest, and, even in the Lothians, the English tongue never
affected the names of rivers and mountains. In many instances, the
existence of a place-name which has now assumed an English form is no
proof of English race. As the Gaelic tongue died out, Gaelic place-names
were either translated or corrupted into English forms; Englishmen,
receiving grants of land from Malcolm Canmore and his successors, called
these lands after their own names, with the addition of the suffix-ham
or-tun; the influence of English ecclesiastics introduced many new
names; and as English commerce opened up new seaports, some of these
became known by the names which Englishmen had given them.[7] On the
whole, the evidence of the place-names corroborates our view that the
changes were changes in civilization, and not in racial distribution.

We now proceed to indicate the method by which these changes were
effected, apart from any displacement of race. Our explanation finds a
parallel in the process which has changed the face of the Scottish
Highlands within the last hundred and fifty years, and which produced
very important results within the "sixty years" to which Sir Walter
Scott referred in the second title of _Waverley_.[8] There has been no
racial displacement; but the English language and English civilization
have gradually been superseding the ancient tongue and the ancient
customs of the Scottish Highlands. The difference between Skye and Fife
is that the influences which have been at work in the former for a