[ 595 ] 



ROYAL IRISH ACADEMY. 

 [Continued from p. 440.] 



Feb. 22, 1841. — The Secretary read the following " Collection of 

 Notes on the early History of Science in Ireland." By James 

 Orchard Halliwell, Esq., F.R.S., F.S.A., F.R.A.S.. &c. 



" The following scraps on a subject which has never yet been 

 treated of by any writer with whose works I am acquainted, al- 

 though unfolding no views of any great importance, will, it is believed, 

 form a subject of discussion interesting to all natives of Ireland, who 

 would think favourably of the intellectual character and resources of 

 their countrymen. 



" The earliest remnant of Irish science that I have met with, is 

 contained in MS. Arundel, 333, in the British Museum, which con- 

 tains several medical and astrological tracts in the Irish language of 

 the thirteenth century, together with similar tracts of the fourteenth 

 and fifteenth centuries. These tracts are of a similar nature with 

 contemporary manuscripts written in England and on the continent. 

 For instance, at fol. 27, is an extract translated from the treatise of 

 the venerable Bede, De Divisionibus Temporis ; at fol. 35, is a 

 short tract on the months of the year and their several durations ; 

 at fol. 76, is a scrap on the four seasons of the year> and on the 

 planets which govern them. 



" The whole volume contains astrology, mixed with the sciences of 

 medicine and astronomy. Medical manuscripts in Irish of this early 

 period are more numerous than others ; and the Egerton collection 

 in the British Museum contains several; one dated in the year 1303, 

 and wTitten on the continent *. 



" Some writers say, that Johannes de Sacro Bosco, the contempo- 

 rary of Roger Bacon, and who shines so conspicuously in the history of 

 the mathematical sciences of the thirteenth century, was a native of 

 Ireland ; but, whatever obscurity may hang over the actucd place of his 

 birth, it is certain that he resided nearly the whole of his life in Eng- 

 land and France, and there is nothing to show that his writings 

 were ever circulated in that country. 



" Be this as it may, yet it appears from MS. Egerton, No. 90, 

 that the Arabic numerals usually, though erroneously f, ascribed to 

 Roger Bacon, were well known and understood in Ireland at the 

 commencement of the fourteenth century. The document contained 

 in this volume is very valuable evidence, in the absence of any other 

 as early. The MS. referred to contains an astronomical and eccle- 

 siastical calendar, together with a table of ecclesiastical computation, 

 all in the Irish character, and the numerals are written in identically 

 the same form as they apjiear in foreign documents of the same 

 period J. 



" The introduction of the zero is a proof that the Arabic notation 

 was fully understood by the writer of the manuscript. It may be 

 added, that there follows, immediately after the documents just men- 

 tioned, a table of the twelve signs of the zodiac, with their different 



* MS. Egerton, No. 81). f See my Rara Mathematica, p. 114. 



[t These numerals are given in the Proceedings of the Academy,No.28.] 



