104 International Geogra'phic Conferen.ce. 



of Skye. The committee is proceeding in this manner : Every 

 local name on the map is submitted to three or four of the oldest 

 men in the parish, and their pronunciation is taken down by a 

 person speaking Gaelic. In this way the local pronunciation is 

 surely fixed, and if the words have a significant meaning they 

 can easily be written in standard literary Gaelic if that shoiild 

 differ from the local pronunciation. As I am not on the com- 

 mittee myself, I am not certain whether the words are to be 

 given phonetically on the map or according to literary usage in 

 Gaelic ; but I have no doubt that they ought to be rendered 

 phonetically, so that even those unversed in Gaelic would be 

 able to read them correctly. Old Irish was written as it was 

 pronounced, but unfortunately the faddists of the sixteenth 

 century — for there were faddists even in those days^invented 

 an absurd rule, opposed to every philological principle, and still 

 in force, which the^y called in Irish or Gaelic, " caol ri caol, 

 leathan ri leatha.n ;" that is to say, if there is a slender vowel, an e 

 or an i, in the first syllable, then the first vowel of the next 

 syllable must be slender. Similarl}'-, if the voAvel of the first 

 syllable is broad, as a, o, u, the first vowel of the second syllable 

 must also be broad. These extraneous, inorganic vowels do not 

 affect the pronunciation, and in a reformed spelling ought cer- 

 tainly to be omitted. Another fruitful source of inaccuracy in 

 writing Gaelic words arises from spelling in accordance with a 

 fanciful and in reality a baseless etymology. The dictionary 

 of the Highland Society and O'Brien's Irish Dictionary are full 

 of examples of this sort, though there is this excuse for them, 

 that both were compiled before philology became an exact 

 science and before old Irish of the ninth and tenth centuries 

 was known to the learned world. The task which the committee 

 has to accomplish is therefore by no means an easy one. 



Another subject which the Royal Scottish Geographical 

 Society has had under .consideration, though no action has yet 

 been taken, is one that relates to lake basins. On all our 

 ordnance maps the configuration of the earth's surface always 

 ceases with the surface of the water; no soundings are given, no 

 under-Avater contours, and all knowledge of the bottom of the 

 lakes is left to the imagination. Such a state of thingsis clearly 

 inexcusable, but unfortunately the funds of the society are in- 

 sufficient for the task. The Admiralty, which considers fresh- 

 water lakes beyond its province and draws the line at salt water, 



