FERGUSON — On the Transcription of Ogham Legends. 35 



Considerable numbers of these are probably older than any of the 

 MS. glosses on which the text books of early Irish grammar have 

 been constructed. To place these lapidary aids in an authentic form 

 at the disposal of philological scholars would be a step in the promo- 

 tion of learning worthy of the Royal Irish Academy. 



"The published and MS. Ogham texts, as at present accessible to 

 students, are in general unreliable. It might fairly be doubted 

 whether two in three do not contain inaccuracies rendering them 

 worse than useless for exact study. These inaccuracies arise from the 

 difficulty of copying objects generally found in the open air, and which, 

 to be fully seen, must be viewed in various lights : the same Gauses 

 render photographs also unreliable. 



"The Academy already possesses twelve Ogham inscribed stones 

 and several casts in plaster of Paris ; and other plaster casts are 

 ready to be presented as donations. Means also are in preparation 

 for taking casts by a less troublesome and expensive process than in 

 plaster. 



"The Committee of Polite Literature, therefore, report to the 

 Council : — 



" 'That, with a view to the formation of a more complete lapidary 

 museum, means ought to be adopted for securing authentic casts of the 

 chief Ogham inscriptions in the British Islands.' " 



This Report was received and adopted, at a meeting of the Council, 

 on the 7th of June, 1869. 



The circumstances which prevented anything effectual being done 

 in furtherance of the proposal during the past session, are stated in the 

 letter which I subsequently addressed to the Council, inserted below. 

 Various methods were meanwhile under consideration, by which the 

 casts might, if possible, be obtained in some species of papier mache, 

 capable of being easily handled and conveniently kept. 



The methods I had in contemplation at this time involved the 

 employment of paper in pulp and in macerated sheets for casts, 

 combined with the use of a moulding material capable of being 

 smoothed out after each operation, and applied in succession to a 

 series of objects. I had used macerated paper with good effect in 

 taking a mould, which I still preserve, of the Croghan Ogham in 1865 ; 

 and I had employed like means, and also stereotypers' prepared sheets, 

 with some measure of success, on the Ardmore and Castletimon in- 

 scriptions in this country, and on the Bridell legend in South Wales. 

 But the elasticity of the material employed had deprived the moulds 

 of their sharpness, and still left the process very far from perfection. 

 In this state of discouragement and inaction, I communicated my 

 object and its difficulties to Mr. Burchett, of the Art Training Schools 

 at South Kensington, and from him I learned that a paper had been 

 specially made by Messrs. De la Rue for that Department, in 'which 

 moulds of decorative work had been successfully taken by Mr. George 

 M. Atkinson, an Examiner in the same Department, and a gentleman 

 already well known to me by reputation as a zealous Ogham inscrip- 



