Brash, who made personal examination of almost every Ogam known to exist, and whose standard work on the subject reproduces most of the inscriptions discovered up to the date of writing, was of opinion that no Ogam monument had anything Christian about it, and that if any Christian symbol were discovered on an Ogam stone, it must be of later date than the Ogam writing. Dr. Graves, however, has since shown that Ogam was in some few cases at least used over the graves of Christians; and he believes that all Ogam writing is really post-Christian, despite the absence of Christian emblems on the stones, and that it belongs to a comparatively modern period--"in fact, for the most part, to a time between the fifth and seventh century."[24] Brash's great work was supplemented by Sir Samuel Ferguson's, and since that time Professor Rhys[25] and Dr. Whitley Stokes have thrown upon the inscriptions themselves all the light that the highest critical acumen equipped with the completest philological training could do, and have, to quote Mr. Macalister, "between them reduced to order the confusion which almost seemed to warrant the cryptical theories, and have thereby raised Ogam inscriptions from the position of being mere learned playthings to a place of the highest philological importance, not only in Celtic but in Indo-European epigraphy." He himself--the latest to deal with the subject--waves for the present as "difficult--perhaps in some measure insoluble"--all "questions of the time, place, and manner of the development of the Ogham script."[26] Rhys has traced in certain of the inscriptions the influence exercised on the spoken language of the Celtic people by an agglutinating pre-Celtic tongue.[27] This gives us a glimpse at the pre-Aryan languages of the British Isles, which is in the highest degree interesting. To me it seems probable that the Irish discovered the use of letters either through trade with the Continent or through the Romanised Britons, at any time from the first or second century onward. But how or why they invented the Ogam alphabet, instead of using Roman letters, or else Greek ones like the Gauls, is a profound mystery. One thing is certain, namely, that the Ogam alphabet--at whatever time invented--is a possession peculiar to the Irish Gael, and only to be found where he made his settlements. [1] Dr. Jones, the Bishop of St. Davids, in his interesting book, "Vestiges of the Gael in Gwynedd" (North Wales) has come to the conclusion that the Irish occupied the whole of Anglesey, Carnarvon, Merioneth, and Cardiganshire, with at least portions of Denbighshire, Montgomery, and Radnor. Their occupation of part of the south and south-west of England is attested by the area of Ogam finds. [2] "Ireland's Ancient Schools and Scholars," p. 39. I find Migne, in his note on Pelagius, apparently confounding Scotia with Great Britain. [3] See for Dr. Sigerson's ingenious argument "Bards of the Gael and Gaul," Introduction, p. 30.