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Many valuable papers have already appeared in our Proceedings on 

 Ogham inscriptions, but they are only illustrated by wood engravings 

 from drawings. In such eases the human eye can not be trusted as an 

 infallible and reliable medium for representation, and without absolutely 

 accurate representations we cannot have the aid we ought to seek in such 

 studies from our fellow- students abroad. Therefore, I should advise 

 that no more wood-cuts of these monuments should appear in our Pro- 

 ceedings, but that all our efforts should conduce to the publication of 

 autotypes from Dr. Ferguson's photographs, for which purpose the 

 sum of fifty pounds has already been allotted. 



The Celtic philologist, Mr. Ehys, of ISTorth Wales, observes in a letter 

 to me on this subject : — " As to the best means of furthering the study 

 of Irish epigraphy, the Academy cannot do better than encourage Dr. 

 S. Ferguson to take casts of all knoAvn Oghamic inscriptions in the 

 country, and assist him to reproduce them by means of photography 

 or otherwise, in such a way as to make them easily accessible to 

 philologists. I have already seen a few specimens of Dr. Ferguson's 

 work, and they seem to me most satisfactory. As matters now stand 

 an outsider can hardly venture to give an opinion on Irish Oghams 

 collectively, although I copied all the inscriptions of that kind which 

 I could find mentioned in your Proceedings, my knowledge of them is 

 still exceedingly incomplete and fragmentary." And he adds a hope 

 that in time Irish scholars may be led to the discovery of some canons 

 of criticism which may enable them to classify their Oghams chrono- 

 logically, for until that is done their philological value must remain 

 much less than it should be. 



" I do not recollect,'' he adds, " seeing a single instance mentioned 

 of the earlier class of Oghams which struck me as being anything but 

 early Irish, and were there a complete vocabulary of the proper names 

 which occur in Irish MSS. and literature generally, I fancy that a 

 philologist would without difficulty identify 99 out of CA^ery 100 

 names to be met with on Ogham inscribed stones in Ireland." . 

 "Looking at the question in a generalway, I am inclined to think it not 

 improbable that this alphabet may have been introduced into the south 

 of Ireland first by a colony of settlers, from Britain, forced in the fifth 

 century to look for a new home in consequence of a westward pressure 

 due to the Saxon invasion, somewhat in the same way that some of our 

 Kymric Celts settled in Brittany. The origin of Oghamic writing is still 



