( xc^dii ) 



man periodical edited by Kuhn, were his first important contributions 

 to Philology. These papers, some of which have helped to fix the 

 position of the Celtic languages in. the Indo-European family, have 

 been given to us in an English form by Dr. Sullivan, to which he has 

 appended a learned introduction on roots, stems, and derivatives, and 

 on case-endings of nouns in the Indo-Eiu-opean languages. These 

 studies led to Ebel's great work, the re-casting and editing of Zeiiss's 

 Orammatica Celtica, and his last work was a paper contributed to this 

 year's number of the " Hevue Celtique," on O'Davoren's Irish Glos- 

 sary. At the time of his death he was engaged on a work on Celtic 

 accentuation to which scholars were anxiously looking forward, and 

 his loss is a lamentable blow to the science of Philology. 



The third name is that of Sir Charles Lyell, whose great work 

 was the explanation of geological phenomena, by causes which from 

 the eaiiiest time have existed, and are still in existence, such as ter- 

 restrial and meteorological influences, including temperature and che- 

 mical and even vital action. The exclusive theories of "Werner and of 

 Hutton are avoided by Lyell, so that he gives a picture of the varied 

 conditions of geological phenomena still slowly and surely advancing 

 from the earliest influence of chemical, meteorological, and biological 

 influences from the beginning. 



Among the many interesting papers of the past year, those of Dr. 

 Sigerson are peculiarly valuable : the first " On Heat as a Eactor in 

 Vital Action," and the second, " On a cause of Buoyancy of Bodies of a 

 Greater Density than "Water; " the third treats of a subject of much 

 general interest, " The Various Causes of Changes in the Physical Geo- 

 graphy of Ireland," some of these being the natural result of causes 

 commonly in operation, and others, of seismical energy. The raised 

 beaches of Down, Antrim, Lough Eoyle, Portrush, and Howth, prove 

 the action of seismical force, while the basaltic regions witness to past 

 volcanic energy. In the latter investigation, a curious example is 

 given of the value of our Irish Annals, where certain phenomena are 

 recorded, which are the result of earthquakes, and the study of seis- 

 mic action in other portions of the globe proves to us that the Annalists, 

 in their simple statement of facts, are the unconscious recorders of such 

 natural phenomena in this country. They not only record four earth- 

 quakes in Ireland, but sudden eruptions of lakes and rivers ai'e sjjoken 

 of, such as are known to be attendant upon earthquakes elsewhere at 



