34 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



cast cannot be relied on ; but in that region where the hiatus be- 

 tween the a and e had been observed the cast is perfect ; and there, 

 to my surprise, and I hope to my profit as a useful lesson and 

 memento of fallibility, there appeared, on the cast being brought 

 out of its envelopes, three digits distinctly standing for the letter /, 

 and completing the ruediseval saei in its still earlier and more suggestive 

 form, safei. Saei being a form, in the original text of the Brehon Laws, 

 signifying sapiens, or sagus, its appearance with the radical element 

 assimilating it to sopkos still unelided, seems to point to an even earlier 

 origin for this remarkable inscription than for the compilation of those 

 laws. I do not here attempt to enter on the analogies thus disclosed, 

 and the subject having served its purpose of illustrating the uncertainty 

 of out-of-door observation, is remitted to the consideration of the 

 comparative philologist. 



While profiting by those experiences of my own fallibility, extended 

 observation had led me to the conclusion that others were as little 

 exempt from such errors as nryself. I here record one of these 

 observations, as showing how widely diffused are the effects of a first 

 oversight, and how great is the waste of learning occasioned by the 

 heedlessness of learned men. 



I had procured from the Museum of the Society of Antiquaries at 

 Edinburgh a duplicate, in plaster of Paris, of the cast presented to that 

 distinguished body by Mr. Skene, of the Ogham legend on the Newton 

 Stone. This Ogham, with its associated epigraph, in what seem to be 

 debased Roman characters, has long served as an inscriptional bow of 

 Ulysses. The principal legend has been rendered into six different 

 languages. The subsidiary Ogham has been read in Erse and in 

 Pali. Both are found figured in numerous engravings from drawings 

 made by the hand and from images taken by the photograph. In these 

 latter, the characters have been developed by being picked out in white 

 before exposure to the camera. An examination of the cast shows that 

 several groups of digits exist on the lower portion of the stone, in 

 evident continuity with the rest of the Ogham text, which have 

 hitherto altogether escaped observation. The effect of the introduc- 

 tion of these ingredients into the respective renderings of the rest of 

 the text it would be difficult to predicate. 



Strongly impressed with the fallibility of the eye even of trained 

 archaeologists, I turned to the Royal Irish Academy as the body most 

 interested in the accuracy of inscriptional texts, and best qualified, 

 from its position and resources, to secure good examples ; and the 

 result of the representations which I ventured to make to the Com- 

 mittee of Polite Literature on the subject was the following Report to 

 the Council dated 26th May, 1869 : — 



' ' The Committee of Polite Literature have had under their consi- 

 deration the expediency of taking steps to encourage the systematic 

 study of Ogham inscribed stones in the British Islands. 



"In Ireland, there exist upwards of one hundred known Ogham 

 legends; and, probably, a larger number remains to be brought to light. 



