470 



NATURE 



[JUNL 17, 19C9 



"(7) Jl'"-" cause why it is right for the law to be closed 

 for nine days after the calends of winter, and nine days 

 alter the feast of St. Uridget to be open : is to avoid closing 

 the law on one day : and the same manner, nine days 

 ;ifier the calends of Alay to be closed, and nine days after 

 August (footnote, the ' Calends of August ') to be open : 

 to avoid opening the law on one day likewise. 



" (8) Whoever willelh to institute a suit for landed 

 property let him do it when he will, from the ninth of 

 the calends of winter forwards, or from the ninth of May. 

 because those are the times the law is open for landed 

 .property." 



Anyone conversant with the evidence given in Sir 

 Norman Lockycr's " Slonehenge " as to the May-August- 

 Novenibcr-I-'ebruury arrangement of the year that once 

 .prevailed in this country, and the articles' in Natlre by 

 the Rev. John GrilVnh, of Llangvnnwvd, showing that the 

 Gorsedd of the Welsh bards is a Mav-November stone 

 circle, will not fail to appreciate the confirmatory evidence 

 contained in the above quotations from the Laws of the 

 tenth century. It is conclusive proof, we take it, that 

 the .May-November year was the onlv division of time 

 recognised for legal purposes at the time of Howel Dda. 

 It must be remembered, , also, that there is no evidence 

 Jo show that these Laws were creations of the tenth 

 -century, but simply records of customs from time 

 immemorial. 



While the Venedotian Code of the Laws gives the Mav- 

 November division complete, the Demetian and Gwenlian 

 •Codes, which are of slightlv later date, in one or two 

 jiistances^ mention solstitial dates as the proper time to 

 ■plead." For instance, the Demetian Code ha*; :— 

 ' I here are two days, that is, the ninth of December and 

 the ninth day of May, whereon it is right to commence 

 proceedings as to the inherit.-ince of land bv kin," &c. 

 1 he bardic literature of the si.xtcenlh century onward, dis- 

 cussed by Prof. J. Morris Jones, mentions on'lv the solstices 

 and equino.xes as the proper times to hold Gorsedd meet- 

 ings. 



Did the bards have access onlv to the later codes and 

 therefrom take their Gorseddic instructions? The Rev. 

 John Griffith in N.vture. Mav 2, 1907, directed attention 

 to the interesting fact that the plan of the Mav-November 

 AXelsh L.orsedd preserved by lolo Morganwg was accom- 

 panied by instructions applicable onlv to a soUtitial 

 <.orsedd. The full historv of this plan' has not vet been 

 found out, but we would suggest that the solstitial instruc- 

 tions became att.iched to the Mav-November plan by 

 <|uarrying m the wrong sections of the Laws. The 

 A enedotian Code contains the instructions proper for hold- 

 ing a M.iv-Novcmber Gorsedd; thev correspond with the 

 stone-cirrle plan preserved by the bards, while the bards 

 have failed to preserve a stone circle to correspond with 

 the solstitial instructions. 



.Sir Norman Lockyer found evidence at Stonehenge that 

 the solstitial repLiced the earlier Mav-November cult, and 

 m Welsh bardic traditions we have' to this day evi'denre 

 1 "I'f '"""^Kle. We have references to the solstitial and 

 •the May-November years. Thev seem to have got mixed 

 up by the blunderings of the b.-irds. The Gorsedd plan as 

 preserved, and followed this week in London bv the Welsh 

 ■bards, and the corresponding enactments of I^owel Dda's 

 Laws, especially the Venedotian Code, represent the older 

 arrangement, while the several references in the Welsh 

 Triads to .Stonehenge as one of the mightv deeds of the 

 Cymry, the solstitial instructions about holding a Gorsedd, 

 and the great desire of present-day leading Gorseddites to 

 liold a meeting at Stonehenge. represent the newer 

 arrangement that prevailed until the coming of the Julian 

 year. 



While we have no excuse to offer for the present-day 

 Titual of the Gorsedd, we would plead for a re-consideration 

 2.' the whole question in the light of recent discoveries. 

 The Welsh bards have been " guiltv " of saving an 

 obsolete institution from oblivion. The control of bard< 

 was, perhaps, only one function belonging to the Gorsedd 

 of ancient times. Long before the fifteenth cenlurv all il^; 

 Tunctions. except the control of the bards, had been taken 

 over by the secular and ecclesiastical administrative courts 

 of Kngland and Wales. In the records of the tenth 

 <ccntury there were at least four Gorsedds, suggestive of 



peculiar administrative power, and on the analogy of the 

 development of institutions in every country it does not 

 require a very great effort of the imagination to sec that 

 in the long ago in this country there was but one Gorsedd, 

 from which emanated tlie directing inlluence of a whole 

 people. W. Griffith. 



NO. 2068, VOL. 80] 



SCIEXTIFIC WORK OF THE INTER- 

 X.VnoSAL COSCRKSS OF APPLIED 

 CHEMISTRY. 

 T\ reviewing the general nature of the papers com- 

 municaled to the seventh International Congress of 

 .■\pplied Chumisiry it may be observed that the tendency 

 has been to discuss matters relating to the general improve- 

 ment in the various chemical industries during recent years 

 rather than to contribute the results of original researches. 

 Uy far the greatest number of original papers before the 

 congress were read in the section for organic chemistry, 

 but the olVicial order of the sections is here maintained. 



In the section for analytical chemistry much stress was 

 laid by various speakers on the general classification of 

 the purity of marketable chemical reagents. Thus Dr. 

 J. T. B.iker proposed that all chemicals should be sold 

 with a label staling the percentage of impurity present. 

 The term " chemically pure " was described as liable to 

 lead to confusion, since absolute purity is in all cases 

 impracticable. The General Chemical Company of New 

 York communicated improved methods for the estimation 

 of small amounts of arsenic existing as impurity in sulphur 

 and sulphuric acid. Messrs. Gardner and Hodgson 

 described a method for the rapid estimation of phenols, 

 based upon the action of iodine upon this class of sub- 

 stances. Prof. Chesneau gave an account of his work on 

 the estimation of phosphorus in iron and steel, which 

 indicated that the phosphorus is completely precipitated as 

 ammonium phosphomolybdate only under definite condi- 

 tions of concentration of the reacting substances, and that 

 this precipitate, which is not a chemical compound, but a 

 definite mixture of ammonium phosphomolybdate and 

 molybdate, should in all cases be washed only with pure 

 water. Papers on the estimation of creatinine were com- 

 municated by .Mr. F. C. Cook and by Mr. .\. C. Chapman. 

 The effect of the creatinine in alk.aline solution is to cause 

 reduction of the picric acid to picramic acid, and errors 

 of analysis arc liable to be produced by the excessive re- 

 duction of the picric acid to colourless tri-amido phenol. 

 A new form of electrode for electrolytic determination ol 

 metals was advocated by Mr. J. W. furrentine. This was 

 composed of graphite which had been impregnated with 

 paraffin wax, and gave results as accurate as those obtained 

 by the use of platinum electrodes. 



In the section for inorganic chemistry Dr. Forstc- 

 Morley read a paper recommending authors to index all 

 communications to scientific journals according to the 

 system employed lor the International Catalogue of Scien- 

 tific Literature. This procedure would considerably lighten 

 the labour of the regional bureaux. Papers on the decom- 

 position of Portland cement by sea-water were read bv 

 Prof. Le Chatclier and by M. j'. Bied. It was shown that 

 the stability of cements towards sea-water is increased bv 

 the addition of puzzuol.tna. .\ review of the chemical 

 nature of puzzuolana was contributed by M. R. Feret. Dr. 

 George Harker gave an .-iccount of the methods of fire 

 extinction in ships and enclosed sp.aces bv means of flue- 

 gas. 



In the section for mining and metallurgy the greater 

 portion of the communications dealt with purely technical 

 points. Mr. C. W. Bannister reviewed the processes for 

 extraction of zinc from its ores, and discussed the losses 

 of this metal during distillation, recommending the employ- 

 ment of carbonaceous filters to prevent the admission of 

 oxygen and to prevent the condensation of lead vapour 

 with the zinc. Prof. R. Schelle described the production 

 of pure tellurium fr.nii its ores. The finely powdered ore 

 was fused with sod.i and sulphur, with formation of the 

 sodium sulphide cmnpriund of tellurium. On treatment 

 of the aqueous solution of this compound with sodium 

 sulphite, a grey precipitate of the pure metal was pro- 

 duced. M. C. F. Jarl gave an account of the quarrying 



