THIRTEENTH ORDINARY MEETING. 193 
In the preface to his Grammatica Celtica, Zeuss (than whom there 
is no better authority), asserts “that it can by no means be estab- 
lished that there was a community or an identity of language be- 
tween the British and the Irish, (¢nter Britannos et Hibernos), in the 
eighth or ninth century, or even at a much earlier date ; although it 
is abundantly manifest that both dialects or languages have begun 
from one fountain.” That statement of Zeuss may be construed legi- 
timately enough in such a manner as to increase the value of the 
argument which can be drawn from topographical names, in favour 
of the theory that the Gaels preceded the Cymry in their occupation 
of Wales as well as of the other portions of the British Isles. 
May not the argument be fairly advanced, that, as the substratum of 
the Topography of Wales is distinctly Gaelic, and as Zeuss, as the 
result of his exhaustive and masterly examination of the oldest forms 
of the Celtic languages or dialects contends, that long before the 
eighth or ninth century there was no identity of language between 
what may be regarded as the Cymry and the Gael,—to the Celts who 
spoke Gaelic the honour belongs of laying the foundation of the To- 
pography of Wales ; for, although the topographical structure has 
many stones that are of Cymric growth, the stones that form the 
foundation and on which the entire structure rests, are of purely 
Gaelic origin, and have an indefeasible kinship with the foundations 
of similar structures in Scotland and Ireland. 
The rapid survey which I have been able to present of the Topo- 
graphy of the Isle of Man and of Wales will, I trust, serve to corro- 
borate the conclusions at which learned philologists such as Llwyd 
and Rhys arrived from different channels of reasoning and observa- 
tion, and to strengthen the theory, if not to establish it on honest 
and satisfactory grounds, that the first powerful stream of Celtic im- 
migration into Britain was Gaelic, and that the same Celts who gave 
names to Fintry and Bannockburn in Scotland, gave names also to 
Bantry and Kinsale in Ireland, to Aberavon and Carnarvon in 
Wales, and to Slieu Mayll and Poolvash in the Isle of Man. 
A short discussion followed, in which Mr. Notman, Mr. 
Shaw, and Mr. Murray took part. 
