158 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVII. No. 943 



The Effect of Lime on the Alkali Tolerance of 

 Wheat Seedlings (with lantern) : Dr. J. A. 

 LeClerc and Mr. J. F. Breazeale. 



C. L. Shear, 

 Corresponding Secretary 



THE anthropological SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON 



At the meeting of the society in the New 

 National Museum on Tuesday afternoon, Novem- 

 ber 19, President George E. Stetson in the chair, 

 Mr. James Mooney, of the Bureau of American 

 Ethnology, lectured upon ' ' The Gaelic Language 

 of Ireland." 



The lecturer outlined the history of the Keltic 

 nations, of whom the Gael of Ireland and Scotland 

 are a part, from their first acquaintance with the 

 Greeks about six hundred years before Christ, 

 down to the storming of Rome in 390 B.C. — the 

 earliest authenticated date in Roman history — 

 their alliance with Alexander the Great, their 

 invasion of Asia Minor and colonization of Galatia 

 in 278 B.C., and the final subjugation and Latiniza- 

 tion of the continental Kelts by the Romans about 

 the beginning of the Christian era. 



Gaelic is the oldest living language in Europe, 

 unless we except modern Greek, and it closely 

 resembles Latin in many of its roots. 



The Gaelic colonization of Ireland probably 

 dated as far back as 1000 B.C. The island was 

 known to the Greeks under a form of its native 

 Gaelic name of Eire as early as four centuries 

 before Christ. The ancient annals mention several 

 earlier races or colonizations, the most important 

 being the Firbolg, probably a part of the Belgse 

 of the continent. They continued to exist as a 

 distinct people under their own chiefs up to the 

 sixth century or later. 



The alphabet of pre-Christian Ireland was the 

 Ogam (Ogum), a system of straight lines or dots 

 ranged along either side of a base line, and some- 

 what resembling a cross between the Morse alpha- 

 bet and the cuneiform inscriptions. It was used 

 chiefly for monumental inscriptions, and continued 

 in use to some extent up to the tenth century. 

 The modern Gaelic alphabet, consisting of seven- 

 teen letters, is an adaptation from the Roman. 



Mention was made of some of the most ancient 

 manuscripts, some of which have been already 

 translated and others of which are now under 

 translation by the Irish Texts Society. Under the 

 Penal Laws, from 1691 until about 1800, the whole 

 native population was practically debarred from 



education. Under the so-called National School 

 System, established in 1831, the national language 

 continued to be proscribed, resulting in its rapid 

 decline. The great famine of 1845-7 with the 

 ensuing wholesale emigration reduced the Gaelic- 

 speaking population by nearly one half within 

 twenty years, the great majority of those remain- 

 ing being entirely illiterate. In 1878 the first con- 

 cession to the native language was made by the 

 national schools. In 1893 the Gaelic League, under 

 the presidency of Dr. Douglas Hyde, began an 

 active propaganda for the restoration of the lan- 

 guage to its proper status, with the result that it 

 is now taught in 3,000 of the 8,000 governmental 

 ' ' national ' ' schools, as well as in a large number 

 of private and denominational schools, a whole 

 flood of modern Gaelic literature covering every 

 subject of intellectual interest is coming from the 

 press, and the Gaelic language has been made an 

 essential for matriculation in the new National 

 University of Ireland beginning with 1913. Out 

 of its own funds the league also maintains ten 

 normal colleges for the training of teachers in the 

 language, in several of which schools the entire 

 course of instruction is through the Gaelic. The 

 census just completed shows that Gaelic is still the 

 home language of nearly 600,000 persons in Ire- 

 land above the age of three years. 



Outside of Ireland the Gaelic speakers in Scot- 

 land, England, the United States, Canada and 

 elsewhere probably number considerably over a 

 million. Prince Edward Island and adjacent parts 

 of Nova Scotia have a compact body of about 

 100,000, mostly descendants of emigrants from the 

 Hebrides. In this country Gaelic instruction is 

 now conducted in several universities and a trans- 

 lation of the Rubaiyat, in Gaelic language and 

 type, was recently published in Chicago. 



W. H. Babcock 



the ELISHA MITCHELL SCIENTIFIC SOCIETY 



The 202d meeting of the society was held 

 December 10 in Chemistry Hall, University of 

 North Carolina. The following program was pre- 

 sented : 



' ' Notes on the Construction of the Crest-of -the- 

 Blue-Ridge Highway," by Mr. T. F. Hiekerson. 



' ' Zonation in the Chapel Hill Stock, ' ' by Mr. 

 Collier Cobb. 



James M. Bell, 

 Becording Secretary 



Chapel Hill, N. C. 



