been found to contain gold in any appreciable quantity until the diabase is met with. All the rocks analysed show a higher percentage of silica than is generally found in other localities. Three analyses made from one piece of diabase showing two distinct lines of alteration by weathering (on the original rock), prove that silica is readily dissolved under atmospheric influences, whilst alumina is not. Iron oxides contain more oxygen near the surface than below it. Lime and magnesia are both readily soluble, but lime much more so than magnesia. Soda is more sensitive to weathering than potash. The rocks contain more combined as well as uncombined water on their surface than when sheltered from atmospheric influences. The paper was accompanied by an appendix on the microscopical structure of some of the varieties of rocks by Prof. Bonney. On the so-called Midford Sands, by James Buckman, F.L.S.-On the physical geography of the north-east of England in permian and triassic times, by E. Wilson, F.G.S. In this paper the author seeks to utilise the information he has acquired from the study of the permian and triassic rocks of the above district, towards solving some of the difficult and much debated questions as to their origin. One of the main objects of the paper is to establish the pre-permian origin of the Pennine Chain.-The formation of rock-basins, by J. D. Kendall, C.E., F.G.S.-On the diorites of the Warwickshire coal-field, by S. Allport, F.G.S.-On Lepidodiscus lebouri, a new species of Agelacrinites, from the carboniferous series of Northumberland, by W. Percy Sladen, F.G.S., F.L.S.-On the ancient

and the Arthur's Creek limestone (permo-carboniferous). Mr. Daintree's collection also contained corals in the chloritic rock of the Gympsie gold-field. From the Coral Creek, Bowen River coal-field, the authors record Stenopora ovata, Lonsd., and S. jackii, sp. n. ; from the Fanning River limestone, Heliolites porosus, Goldf., and Pachypora meridionalis, sp. n.; from the Gympsie chloritic rock, Stenopora ? sp. ind.; from the Broken River limestone, Favosites gothlandicus, vars. Lam., Heliolites porosus, Goldf., H. plasmoporoides, sp. n., H. Daintreei, sp. n., Heliolites, sp. ind., and Aræopora australis, sp. n.; from the Arthur's Creek limestone, Burdekin Down, Alveolites (Pachypora?), sp., near A. robustus, Rom., Alveolites, sp. (lobate form), Aulopora repens, M.-Edw. and H., Heliolites porosus, Goldf., and vars., Lithostrotion, sp. ind., Pachypora meridionalis, Trachypora, sp. ind., and species of Cannopora and Stromatopora. The genus Aræopora is proposed as a new group; the genus Stenopora is made the subject of a long discussion; and the geological characters of the deposits from which the fossils are derived are indicated and discussed.

F.G.S., president, in the chair.-Lieut. A. Carpenter, H. Dodd, Meteorological Society, June 18.-Mr. C. Greaves, Capt. D. Galton, F.R.S., S. B. Goslin, A. Gray, Capt. Marshall Hall, W. L. MacGregor, and Rev. W. P. Robinson, D.D., were elected Fellows of the Society.-The following papers were read :-Report on the International Meteorological Congress held at Rome, April, 1879, by Robert H. Scott, F.R.S. -Thermometer exposure: Wall versus Stevenson screens,

F.G.S. The author described a series of alluvial deposits, varying in thickness from 10 to 160 feet, which have been cut through by the river, and form a series of cliffs, giving rise to striking and characteristic scenery. The succession of beds exposed in these cliffs was illustrated by a number of sections, and it was shown that the strata in question must have been deposited by river action. It was then pointed out that the river is performing two classes of work, namely, cutting away the older sheets of alluvial matter, and depositing the materials derived from them at a much lower level. The interesting phenomena of the cutting of curves by the river, and the abandonment by the river of parts of these curves, giving rise to the formation of lakes, was fully explained; and in conclusion the author showed by a map what vast areas in South America have thus been covered by these alluvial deposits.-The glacial deposits of Cromer, by Clement Reid, F. G.S.-On a disturbance of the chalk at Trowse, near Norwich, by Horace R. Woodward, F.G.S.-The submerged forest of Barnstaple Bay, by Townshend M. Hall, F.G.S.-On a section of boulder clay and gravels at Ballygalley Head, and an inquiry as to the proper classification of the Irish drift, by T. Mellard Reade, C.E., F.G. S.-On the augitic rocks of the Canary Islands, by Prof. Salvador Calderon. Communicated by the President. As the result of a long investigation of the eruptive rocks of the Canaries, and especially of Las Palmas, the author has come to the conclusion that there are two groups of such rocks in those islands, an older one, characterised by the presence of hornblende, and a newer, containing augite. In the latter he finds the essential minerals to be plagioclase, augite, magnetite, olivine, sanidine, and nepheline; and he distinguishes among them the following kinds of rocks, all of which have their characteristic minerals imbedded in a paste of augite and plagioclase :-(1) Augite-andesite, with a small quantity of sanidine; (2) Tephrine, with no sanidine, but abun. dance of nepheline; (3) Basanite, with some peridote; (4) Nepheline-basalt, with abundance of peridote; (5) Dolerite, crystalline, characterised by the disappearance of nepheline, the abundance of peridote and porphyritically imbedded plagioclase, and with porphyritically imbedded individuals of augite and olivine; (6) Felspathic basalt (like 5), but semicrystalline; and (7) Essentially olivinic modern lavas.-On the Cambrian (Sedgw.) and Silurian beds of the Dee valley, as compared with those of the Lake-district, by J. E. Marr, B.A., F.G.S.-On some superficial deposits in the neighbourhood of Evesham, by the Rev. A. H. Winnington Ingram, M.A., F.G.S.-Descriptions of paleozoic corals from Northern Queensland, with observations on the genus Stenopora, by Prof. H. A. Nicholson, M.D., D.Sc.,F.G.S., and R. Etheridge, jun., F.G.S. The corals described in this paper were in part collected by the late Mr. Daintree, chiefly from the limestone of the Broken River, regarded as of Devonian age, and in part by Mr. R. L. Jack, from various sources, namely, the Bowen River coal-field, in beds probably of permo-carboniferous age, the Fanning River limestone (Devonian),

observers to expose their thermometers on walls facing north, it seemed a suitable object of inquiry whether instruments so placed gave results comparable with those obtained from thermometers in a Stevenson stand in the open. A pair of meteorological office wall screens were fixed to the brick wall of an outhouse with a northern aspect, so that the screens were in the shade, except in the morning and afternoon of the summer months. The Stevenson screen was on a grass plot 17 feet square, and about 50 feet north of the wall screen. The paper contains the results of the comparison of the maximum and minimum temperatures in the wall screen with those in the Stevenson screen for the twelve months ending March 31, 1879. The figures show that the mean daily maximum temperature on the wall is below that in the open, the monthly dif ferences varying from oo to 2°1, that for the twelve months being 100. The minimum temperature on the wall was mostly higher than in the Stevenson stand, the differences varying from 0°1 to +1°3, the mean for the year being + 0° 5. The indi. vidual differences, however, are sometimes much greater, the maximum temperature on the wall being considerably lower than that in the stand. For instance, the difference exceeded 4°0 five times in September, and four times in March, the greatest being 607; these extremes occurred on fine calm days. The minimum temperature on the wall was more than 20% higher than that in the Stevenson stand on five occasions in June, seven in July, and four in September. The mean daily range of temperature on the wall for the twelve months was 1°4 less than in the stand in the open. The greatest difference was on March

1

9, when the range on the wall was 8°.5 less than in the stand. These results seem to show that, although the mean temperature may be roughly ascertained from thermometers shaded by a wall with a northern aspect, this method of exposure affords less sensitive indications than those obtained from instruments in a properly exposed Stevenson stand.-On the Hurricane at Mauritius, on March 20th-21st, 1879, by C. Meldrum, LL.D., F.R.S.-On a remarkable disturbance of Barometric Pressure, observed at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, on May 18th, 1878, by W. Ellis, F.R.A.S.-Meteorology of Mozufferpore, Tirhoot, 1878, by C. N. Pearson, F.M.S.-Meteorological Observations made on the Peak of Teneriffe, by Dr. W. Marcet, F.R.S.-On the temperature of the Atlantic during December, 1877 and 1878, by Capt. H. Toynbee, F.R.A.S.

Entomological Society, July 2.-Sir Jno. Lubbock, Bart., V.P.R.S., president, in the chair.—Mr. Vincent Robert Perkins, of South Belgravia, was elected as an Ordinary Member.-Mr. S. Stevens exhibited living specimens of Tillus unifasciatus taken at Norwood.-Mr. McLachlan contributed some further remarks respecting the sculptured pebbles from Lac Léman referred to at the last meeting of the Society.-A number of the perfect insects forwarded by Prof. Forel proved to be Tinodes lurida, Curt., a common insect generally on the margins of

lakes and rivers.—Mr. W. L. Distant exhibited a specimen of Papilio hystaspes, Feld., taken at sea during a calm thirty miles from Singapore and nine miles from the nearest land.-Mr. W. Cole exhibited a remarkable variety of Pyrameis cardui, Linn., taken in Essex.-The Secretary exhibited, on the part of Lord Walsingham, some specimens of a remarkable species of Tipulida (Bittacomorpha clavipes, Fab.) possessing greatly enlarged tarsal joints, captured at Pitt River, California.-Sir Sydney Saunders communicated some additional explanations received from M. Jules Lichtenstein respecting the rearing of the blister beetle, Cantharis versicatoria.

Statistical Society, June 30.-Anniversary meeting. Mr. G. J. Shaw-Lefevre, M.P., in the chair.-The report of the council, the financial statements of the treasurer, and the report of the auditors having been read, the chairman, in moving the adoption of the documents referred to, observed that the Fellows of the Society now numbered 746, and that the increase during the past year over the previous years, and as compared with the average of the last decade (509), indicated the steady progress of the Society. This was confirmed again by the increasing receipts from the sale of the Society's Journal. He congratu lated the meeting on the satisfactory progress of the Society, financially and otherwise, during the past year. Thomas Brassey, M.P., was elected president. The chairman announced the subject selected for the essays in competition for the Howard Medal of 1880 (with 201.), to be "The Oriental Plague, in its Social, Economical, Political, and International Relations; Special Reference being made to the Labours of Howard on the Subject."

ROME

R. Accademia dei Lincei, June 1.-Prof. Blaserna and MM. Casorati and Brioschi read a report on a memoir by M. Ascoli, on the representability of a function of two variants by double trigonometrical series.-Prof. Blaserna and MM. Felici and Betti read a report on a memoir by Prof. Galileo Ferraris

on theorems on the distribution of constant electric currents.Prof. Blaserna presented a memoir by M. Keller on the secular variation of the magnetic declination at Rome.-The following papers were read:-Contributions to etiology, by M. C. Emery. -Locomotion in the air, by M. Cordenous.-The application of photography to topographical operations, by M. Chizzoni.-President Sella spoke on a paper by M. Valle, a crystallographic study of some bodies of the aromatic series, prepared by Prof. Körner.-M. Lanciani made some demonstrations on malaria and on the subterranean roads in Rome and the Roman Campagna. On the nature of the specific agent which produces fevers by malaria, by Profs. Tommaso-Crudelis and Klebs.— On the thermic and galvanometric laws of electric sparks produced by complete and incomplete discharges of condensers, by Prof. Villari.

PARIS

Academy of Sciences, July 7.-M. Daubrée in the chair. -The following papers were read:-Identity of Bacillus amylo bacter and the butyric vibrion of M. Pasteur, by M. van Tieghem. The amylobacter, at a certain phase of development, produces a transitory reserve of starch, impregnating its protoplasm. That this occurs in solutions of dextrine or sugar, seems to have escaped the notice of M. Prazmowski and M. Pasteur.-On a new polygraph, an inscribing apparatus applicable to physiological and clinical researches, by M. Marey. He describes modifications by which his apparatus is rendered more portable, simple, and faithful in its indications. In his tambours, the elastic membrane is caught between two annular plates of metal; for transmission of sphygmograph movements he uses caoutchouc tubes rendered inextensible, &c.-On the origin of the excitosudoral nerve-fibres of the face, by MM. Vulpian and Raymond. The cervical cord of the sympathetic probably contains few, if any, excito-sudoral fibres. The fibres in question come either from sympathetic nerve-fibres accompanying the vertebral artery in its as cending course through the transverse apophyses of the cervical vertebræ and (through these fibres) from the upper thoracic ganglion, or from the parts of the sympathetic coming from the rachidian bulb and the protuberance.-On the inundation of the town of Szegedin, in Hungary, by General Morin. A scientific account of the disaster. From data supplied by Prof. Krusper, of Buda-Pesth, it is shown that in less than fifty years, both as the natural effect of alluvia and that of embankment, the level of flood of the Tisza had risen two metres. General Morin points out the ad

vantage of transferring the clayey and muddy deposits of the river from the lower to the upper parts of the valley, so turning marshes into cultivable land, and increasing the slope of the valley. With this view the dykes of the left bank might be gradually suppressed and replaced by submersible oblique dykes, furnishing successive basins for interception of material.-On the mean value of coefficients in the development of a skew or symmetrical determinant of an order infinitely great, and on doubly skew determinants, by Prof. Sylvester.-Application of sulphocarbonate of potassium to phylloxerised vines, by M. Mouillefert. He gives in a table particulars of the treatments effected by the General Society in the spring of this year. The sulphocarbonate is almost universally applicable for French vineyards, and can be used in any weather or any season without danger to the vine.-On the hypergeometric series and the polynomes of Jacobi, by M. Appell.-On the recent eruption of Etna, by M. Fouqué. The new eruption has produced, on the south-south-west, a fissure having only a few small crateriform apertures, and mouths of emission of lava slightly developed ; but on the north-north-east side there are ten distinct crater, two of which are enormous (200 m. diameter, and So m. depth).-On the same subject, by M. de Saussure. He describes the phenomena in detail.-Evaporation of water under the influence of solar radiation through coloured glasses, by M. Baudrimont. Green and red, in general, favour the evaporation least, while yellow and red favour it most. M. Baudrimont considers there is probably a simple relation between the number and extent of the luminous waves and the number and extent of those which produce heat, in virtue of which they can be simultaneously propagated through a coloured glass and concur in the effect produced.-Thermo-chemical study of alkaline sulphides, by M. Sabatier. On a new metal discovered by M. Tellef Dahll, by M. Hiortdahl. He has found it in a mineral composed of arseniuret of nickel (kupfernickel) and nickel glance at Otero, a small island near the town of Krages.. He calls it Norvegium. It is white, somewhat malleable, and hard like copper (Ng = 145'95).—On commercial trimethylamine, by MM. Duvillier and Buisine. It is not a simple product, as M. Vincent asserts; of trimethylamine there is only 5 to 10 per cent. in it. Dimethylamine dominates, being about 50 per cent. There are also monomethylamine, monopropylamine, and monoisobutylamine, in nearly equal quantities.-The charbon of ordinary onion (Allium cepa), a new disease, originating in America, and caused by an Ustilaginea (Urocystis cepule, Farlow), by M. Cornu.-Contribution to the physiology of local sweats; local action and antagonism of hypodermic injections of pilocarpine and atropine, by M. Straus.

THURSDAY, JULY 24, 1879

ROMAN ANTIQUITIES

Roman Antiquities at Lydney Park, Gloucestershire. Being a Posthumous Work of the Rev. William Hiley Bathurst, M.A., with Notes by C. W. King, M.A., Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. Pp. vii., 127; Plates xxxi., quarto. (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1879.)

LYD

YDNEY PARK appears to be the property of the Bathursts, having been purchased by Mr. Benjamin Bathurst in 1723, so the remains found there have been mostly disinterred under the superintendence of different members of the family in successive generations, and then carefully drawn and described by them. "When the Roman constructions in Lydney Park," the editor tells us in the preface, "were first regularly explored, at the beginning of this century, the Right Hon. C. Bathurst, after taking accurate plans and drawings of the several rooms as they successively came to light, composed a detailed description, in two parts, of the Villa and the Temple." The whole appears to have been found too long and too discursive for publication; so the late Mr. Bathurst, whose name appears on the title-page, “prepared, with great care not to omit any really important particulars, a summary of both these manuscript memoirs; and this forms the text of the volume now printed." But in addition to the papers left by the elder Bathurst, "his daughter, Miss Charlotte Bathurst, had drawn up a descriptive catalogue of coins, selected for their special interest or beauty of condition from amongst the immense quantity found in the course of the excavations." This list Mr. King found "upon examination to exhibit such accurate knowledge of numismatics, coupled with such intelligence in the selection of the pieces," that he has published it without any important alteration; and so far as one can learn from the present volume the Bathursts deserve great credit for this enlightened appreciation of the archæological treasure which had fallen to their lot. But the reader must not be left to conclude that the whole of it has passed through their hands, for Mr. Bathurst says that "Major Rooke, who published some account of this camp in the 'Archæologia,' v. 207, in 1777, was frequently at Lydney, and was allowed to dig wherever he was inclined. Others also were in the habit of searching for coins and other antiquities, and taking them away." Then there has been the usual quarrying for buildingstone with the usual result of materially damaging the old pavements, which seem to have still further suffered from a search for iron ore in the limestone of which the hill is composed, on which the camp stood.

So much by way of introduction: I shall not attempt to describe the coins, the articles of bronze or iron, and the tesselated pavements, but confine my remarks to the antiquities relating to the god Nodens, which Mr. King rightly considers to exceed largely in curiosity and value anything of the kind yet discovered in this country. The inscriptions on the votive tablets have long been known, and will be found in the seventh volume of the "Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum," edited by Hübner for the Berlin Academy. One of them consists of a sheet of VOL. XX.-No. 508

lead "carelessly scratched with a graver," and reads in plate xx :--

DEVO

NODENTI SILVLANVS

ANILVM PERDEDIT
DEMEDIAM PARTEM
DONAVIT NODENTI
INTER QVIBVS NOMEN
SENICIANI NOLLIS
PETMITTAS (sic) SANITA
TEM DONEC PERFERA[T]
VSQVE TEMPLVM NO
DENTIS.

It is thus rendered by Mr. King: "To the god Nodens. Silvianus has lost a Ring: he has made offering (vowed) half (its value) to Nodens. Amongst all who bear the name of Senecianus, refuse thou to grant health to exist, until he bring back the Ring to the Temple of Nodens." But why Silulanus should be made into Silvianus I fail to see; for my part I should regard the former as reechoing the national name of the Silurians; but that is, of course, another matter.

Another of the tablets is of bronze with pointillé letters surmounted with the figure of an animal which the editor pronounces to be a wolf and not a dog as had hitherto been supposed; he believes the vow to have been made on the occasion of an escape from a wolf-it reads thus :

PECTILLVS VOTVM QVOD PROMISSIT DEO NVDENTE

M. DEDIT.

The chief question which this suggests is what the M stands for; Hübner suggests Marti, Maximo, and Meritò, but prefers the two former and gives the first place to Marti; but Mr. King does not take this last into account, while he decides in favour of Maximo as against Meritò, and on the whole this seems satisfactory and suits the remaining bronze tablet, which reads in letters, formed in the same pointillé fashion as those of the previous one, as follows:

D. M. NODONTI FL. BLANDINVS ARMATVRA

V. S. L. M.

Besides these tablets there have been found at Lydney a number of detached letters cut out of a thin plate of bronze for affixing to a surface by means of small nails in order to make an inscription, as in the case of the Maison Carrée at Nismes, excepting that the Lydney ones were, as Mr. King thinks, to be fixed to a wooden surface, probably that of the coffer; but what is interesting is that when sorted the letters make NODENTI SACRVM, excepting that one-half of the letter s has not yet been found.

But the inscription which presents most difficulty has still to be mentioned: it is worked into the tesselated pavement of the temple and consists of two long lines. "With the aid of the accurate drawing made at the time of its discovery," and by comparing "the imperfect characters with those well preserved," the editor thinks he has improved on previous attempts to decipher the dedication, which he reads as follows, with the abbreviations extended :-Deo Maximo ITerum FLAVIVS

SENILIS PRaeses RELigionis EX STIPIBVS POSSVIT OpituLANTE VICTORINO INTERprete LaTINE. Accordingly he translates :-"To the greatest God, for the second time, Flavius Senilis, Head of the Religion, has erected this, from voluntary contributions, the Director of the works being Victorinus, interpreter for the Latin tongue." On the whole the profession of Victorinus is open to some doubt, as several of the letters following INTER are very far gone; however Mr. King strongly maintains that the hitherto accepted reading of IN. TERAMNATE is impossible. Perhaps a difference of opinion may still be allowed to exist as to the profession of Flavius Senilis also; but it is tolerably evident both from this inscription and the others already mentioned which were found in the same building, that it was the temple of the god Nodens. That the D. M. with which the dedication begins stand for Deo Maximo is in Mr. King's opinion put beyond doubt by the heading of the votive tablet of Flavius Blandinus. Such a prelude he thinks is designed to mark the god's supremacy, while his name is superfluous in his own temple, every visitor being supposed to recognise him as "the supreme deity of Siluria." He then goes on to produce reasons for supposing the rebuilding of the temple to have taken place in the time of Agricola and in consequence of the encouragement he gave the Britons to engage in works of civilisation. But the fact of the re-erection taking place under the eyes of the Romans will prepare the reader to find this Silurian deity represented in the classical fashion. Mr. King thinks that he was meant for a sea or river god, and that fact is, in his opinion, "placed beyond doubt by the design of the pavement, dedicated to him, be it observed, that decorates the floor of the temple." The description he gives of them is as follows (p. 39) :—" The centre is formed by two sea-serpents, represented in the usual form given by the Greek painters to the dreaded Kŷтos, as it is seen in the Pompeian wall-painting of Perseus and Andromeda. This sea-monster closely resembles the ichthyosaurus of geologists, with its elongated neck and pectoral paddles, or 'flippers,' which are coloured bright red in our mosaic to augment the savageness of its aspect. The field is occupied with figures of fish, evidently salmon, the chief glory of the Severn." We have not yet done with the pavement, for in the part occupied by the dedicatory inscription, but not quite in the centre, seemingly not to cut up the names, as Mr. King thinks, there is what he describes as “a circular opening, nine inches in diameter, surrounded by a broad red band, again inclosed in two others of blue. That some high mystery was involved in the setting of this unsightly object in so conspicuous a position cannot admit of any doubt." He comes to the conclusion that this funnel was meant to receive libations poured to the god, and that they were drunk up by the dry soil beneath. He further compares this opening in the pavement "to the well of salt water, that famous memorial of the former presence of Poseidon, in the Acropolis of Athens."

In addition to the foregoing inscriptions there has been found there what is described by the editor as "a bronze plaque, clearly intended for personal decoration; the most obvious purpose to which it can "-he thinks-"be assigned, being that of the frontlet of the head-dress worn either by the idol itself or by the officiating priest, after

the manner of the large ornamented disks of thin gold so frequently turned up in Ireland." The following is his description of this ornament:—

"In the centre rises a youthful deity. . . . he is crowned with rays like Phoebus (or more probably 'his bonnet sedge,' like Camus), carries a sceptre, and is borne over the waters in a car drawn by four sea-horses, like winged Genius, clearly typifying the Winds, one holding the Roman Neptune. On each side floats in the air a forth in his right the leaf-shaped fan commonly seen in the hands of Roman ladies; the other Zephyr similarly waves a handkerchief; both grasp in the left hand the end of the shawl or chlamys, thrown loosely over each Rude as is the engraving, there is a lightness and freedom in the drawing of these figures much to be admired, and expressing with great truth the airy nature of the beings it attempts to embody. Each end of the composition is filled up with a reclining Triton; the one brandishing two paddles of the very shape still employed by those that navigate the primitive British bark, the coracle; the other, an anchor, and his proper attribute, the shell-trumpet, the cava buccina, assigned to him by Ovid."

arm.

There remains another piece of ornamentation, which Mr. King regards as a fragment of the foregoing; but I must give his own words:

"On the smaller fragment, evidently part of the same decoration, Triton is yet more distinctly represented; he do him service, whilst he wields the anchor for sceptre; is here winding a blast on his conch to call the winds to on the other side sits the votary of Nodens, the Silurian fisherman, enveloped in the hooded frieze mantle worn to this day by his brethren of Naples, and who, by the favour of the god, has just hooked a magnificent salmon."

Mr. King is somewhat unlucky when he comes to touch on questions of Celtic philology, as will be seen from the following extract:—

"Dr. McCaul quotes from a letter from Meyrick to Lysons that 'Deus Nodens seems to be Romanised British, which correctly written in the original language would be Deus Noddyns, the "God of the abyss," or it may be "God the preserver," from the verb noddi, to preserve; both words being derived from nawdd, which signifies protection.' Prof. Jarrett, a profound Celtic scholar, to whom I applied for a translation of Deus Noddyns' without mentioning Meyrick's explanation, at once rendered it as ' God of the deeps,' a sense that every circumstance confirms."

What Meyrick may have said to Lysons on Celtic philology had best be forgotten, and with all respect to a Celtic scholar with whose name I do not happen to be acquainted, it will be at once admitted by all those who know Welsh, that Noddyns is gibberish; nay, I might go so far as to say that it could not be made to fit into the vocabulary of any Celtic language past or present. The word which in all probability suggested it to Meyrick was anoddyn or anoddyfn, “abyss," with which Nodens, however, could not, according to any known rules of Welsh phonology, be connected. This wretched bit of philology does not, I am glad to say, vitiate the rest of the editor's reasoning, which seems to me so good that I should like to put him on another tack. In a lecture not yet published, but delivered before the present volume was published, I ventured to equate the name of the god with that of another, which I thought I detected in an Irish proper name: I allude to Mogh Nuadhad (in an older orthography Mog Nuadat), the name of a Munster prince

well known in Irish legend. It means the slave or servant of Nuadha, and belongs to a group of Irish proper names which I take to be of a Non-Aryan origin, and to mark the præ-Celtic race of Ireland. Another of the same kind was Mogh Néid, the slave or servant of Néid; for the Ancient Irish had a god of war called Néid or Nét.

This kind of nomenclature, I need hardly say, is well known on Semitic ground: take, for instance, the biblical Abdiel," servant of God," or the inscriptional Abdastartus, "servant of Astarte." On the other hand the Aryans gave the preference to compounds such as the Sanskrit Deva-datta, Greek Ocó-doros, or the Welsh Cad-wal, Irish Cath-al, Old German Hatho-wulf, or the wolf of war. To return to Lydney, the name Nodens, genitive Nodentis is precisely what would make in Irish, according to the phonological laws of that language, a nominative Nuadha, genitive Nuadhat, that is on the supposition that the first syllable of the god's name was long, Nōdens or Nūdens; further, corresponding to an Irish nominative Nuadha, the Welsh form should be Nudd, with i pronounced nearly like German ü, and dd like th in the English word this; and Nudd occurs in Welsh both in prose and verse, namely, in connection with Edern son of Nudd and Gwyn son of Nudd, where it probably meant a god-ancestor rather than the father; compare Bran son of Llyr, that is, Bran son of the Sea. Even the hesitation in spelling between Nodens and Nudens fits exactly into Welsh phonology, which makes both the ō and the ū of the language in its early period into u in its later stages; from the Lydney inscriptions this would seem to have been nearly accomplished in the first century.

It is unfortunate that Welsh literature gives us no information as to the attributes of Nudd; the case is much the same with Nuadha in Irish literature, but it is right to say that the latter makes Nuadha to be a king of the Tuatha Dé Danann, that is to say, king of the most mythical race in Irish legend, and the following passage in O' Curry's Lectures on the Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish (iii. 156) is to the point, though he gives no reference to the original, which he had in view in it :-"The river Boyne, from the clearness of its waters, was poetically called Righ Mná Nuadhat; that is, the wrist or forearm of Nuadhat's wife. This lady was one of the Tuatha Dé Danann; and the poetical allusion to her arm originated from her keeping it constantly covered with rings or bracelets of gold to bestow upon poets and musicians." I am inclined to think that the term Righ Mná Nuadhat had a much deeper meaning, and that it is, in fact, a relic of Irish mythology. For there is good ground for believing that the Boyne was personified and probably worshipped; I conclude this from the meaning

of its name, which was in Old Irish Bóind, genitive Bóindeo, and in Ptolemy's Geography Bovovivda, i.e., Buwinda, which has been equated and, no doubt, correctly with the Sanskrit adjective govinda, which, according to the Petersburg Dictionary, means "acquiring or winning cows or herds," and occurs as an epithet to Bṛhaspati, Krshna, and Vishnu. In Cormac's Glossary we learn that the Boyne had another name, Bergna or Bregna, which also appears to have been personal. In Britain, the Dee, for example, was undoubtedly regarded as a divine stream, and probably also Ptolemy's Belisama wrongly identified in my Lectures on Welsh Philology

with the Dee. If, then, the Boyne was such another river divinity, nothing could be more natural than for the muse of mythology, if I may use the term, to marry her to Nodens, god of the sea, if it is right, as it seems to be, to describe him as such.

Mr. King touches on several minor points of great interest to Celtic philologists, as, for instance, when he says of Senilis, "that his uncommon cognomen is probably a translation of his British name, Hen, the Old;" but it is hardly necessary to speak here of a translation, as at the date of the dedication hen was sen in all Celtic languages, and the Welsh change of initial s into ʼn did not set in for centuries afterwards. With Senilis may be compared or contrasted the Senilus of the post-Roman inscription of St. Just in Cornwall, see p. 406 of the Lectures on Welsh Philology, and also the "Grammatica Celtica," p. 769, where an Irish name is mentioned as written Sinill, with which may be compared the Senyllt of later Welsh: more than one of these forms seem to postulate a Latin Senilius. Hübner has other instances of Senilis besides the one from Lydney. Quite distinct from the fortune of initial s was that of vowel-flanked s, as it has disappeared without a trace both in Welsh and Irish, and that probably at a very early date: possibly before they had differentiated themselves into distinct languages. The Lydney inscriptions seem to me to give strong indirect evidence to the effect that it had in this country disappeared before the first century; for the best explanation of the doubling of the s in POSSVIT and PROMISSIT is to suppose the inscriber to have been a Celt, in whose language, as in Welsh and Irish, a soft s or single s between vowels was unknown; his mistake could be copiously paralleled by the way Welshmen of the present day deal with English s and z. I suspect also that the Celtic word for god, of the same origin and derivation as the Latin divus and beginning, as it must have in early Welsh, with the syllable dễv, had not a little to do with the spelling DEVO in the tablet of Silulanus.

I cannot end this somewhat lengthy notice without heartily thanking Mr. King and the Bathursts for a volume so full of interest and so well got up.

JOHN RHYS

THE RIGHTS OF AN ANIMAL

The Rights of an Animal; a New Essay in Ethics. By Edward Byron Nicholson, M.A., Principal Librarian and Superintendent of the London Institution. (London: C. Kegan Paul and Co., 1879.)

THIS

HIS is a little book-too little to be satisfactory. Its object is to argue that "animals have the same abstract rights of life and personal liberty with man." The ambiguity which attaches to the word same" in this opening statement of the "principle" to be proved casts its shadow over all the remaining sixty pages of which the essay consists. That animals have not in all respects identical "rights of life and liberty with man" is too obvious a truth for even Mr. Nicholson to combat. He neither objects to the slaughtering of animals for food nor to the working of animals for purposes useful to man. Yet if the rights of animals were, strictly speaking, "the same" as those of man, the former act