couchant; one of them, by its proboscis, is evidently intended for an elephant. While the isolated round tower seems peculiar to Ireland, it is a matter of fact that it is found in many other places. Recent explorations in Mashonaland have brought to light a number of ruins, wherein the round tower formed a prominent feature. An illustration given herewith shows the remains of a circular tower, or atalaya, which is now standing in Colorado, on the bank of the San Juan River. The ruin, as it now remains, is about sixteen feet high. The base is concealed by an accumulation of débris, but the original surface, it can be seen, is a knoll that rises a few feet above the plain. Andre Matteson, writing of this tower on the spot, says of it: "The tower has an interior diameter of about nine feet, and has a single opening, some nine or ten feet from the ground,-which is greatly enlarged by a break in the wall on the side towards the attached building. The stones are roughly fitted to the circle, and some understanding of the mason's art is shown in managing the courses." There are numbers of such towers scattered over Colorado, Arizona, Mexico, and Central 66 noticed that the term atalaya is the name given to the watch-tower of the Arab-Moors, which is built in the same form. Fergusson says, "No attempt has been made to show whence the Irish obtained this remarkable form of tower, or why they persevered so long in its use, with peculiarities not found either in the contemporary churches or any other of their buildings. No one ATALAYA," OR ROUND TOWER OF COLORADO. and South America. The thick- imagines it to have been invented by ness of the walls of these towers varies about the same as it does in Ireland; the high towers having their walls about three feet six inches thick, while the lower ones vary from one and a half to two and a half feet. A number of double and triple walled towers are found in Central America, and in Colorado and Arizona, the uses of which are unknown. It will be the rude builders of the early churches, and no theory yet proposed accounts for the perseverance of the Irish in its employment, at a time when the practice of all the other nations of Europe was so widely different. It must have been a sacred and time-honored form somewhere, and with some people, previous to its current adoption in Ireland, but the place and the time at which it was so, still remain to be determined." Moab." This tower is somewhat like (History of Architecture.) It is a well known fact that the early missionaries usually chose the sites of pagan temples for their churches, but it is not equally well known that the relics of pagan places of worship remain in close association with these towers, and even in the same churchyard; the pillar-stone of witness, the tapering sun-stone, the cromlac, the fire-house, and the holy spring of sacred water necessary in the mystic rites, all these have been found along with the tower, and the little ancient church within the same narrow boundary. These facts, along with the other, prove that in early pagan times the worship of Bel or Baal obtained in Ireland, and these structures-or their forerunners-may have been used as the points where the sacred fires were kept alive, the tower itself being an emblem of the sunbean, or ray of heavenly fire. the one at Antrim, only that it has a square section. Like most of the Irish examples, it is situated on a knoll, and has its door about ten feet from the ground. There is no other opening, except one window in each face on the top. About three feet from the crown of the door arch is a cross in high relief, set in an ellipse. It has also the peculiarity that it stands free, but close to a small cell or chapel, as is the case with almost all the Irish towers. The one point in which it differs from the Irish examples is that its plan is square, instead of being circular. This does not seem so important as it at first sight may appear, seeing how many circular minarets were afterwards erected in the East, which must have had a model somewhere. Practically, therefore, this Moabite tower may be described, Hibernice, as "a square Irish round tower." Doubtless, the Tuatha de RUINS OF TRIPLE WALLED TOWER, COLORADO. Of the 107 round towers known to have existed in Ireland, several bear evidence of an Eastern origin, notably one at Devenish, which bears the singular ornament of an obtuse crescent, rising from a cone similar to the trident of Seeva. The tower at Ardmore, near Waterford, was ornamented with the same device, and several others bear ornaments having welldefined Oriental traces upon them. It is not long since Dr. Tristam discovered near Um Rasis, in the land of Moab, a tower that bears directly on th question. It is illustrated and described on page 145 of his work, "Land of Danaans, a race which inhabited Ireland until the invasion of the Milesians about 1000 B.C., introduced these towers from the East, or probably from Egypt, where watchtowers were in use 2,500 years B.C., and succeeding generations, appreciating their usefulness, continued building them, until finally they became interwoven with the religious and civil customs of the country, and their original purpose became obsolete and forgotten. I am of the belief that the present generation of towers is the second or third, and that the foundations on which they stand have borne other and more durable ones than any now in existence. It is by no means certain that all the towers in Ireland were circular, for the basement of Kells' tower is square, and the stones are of immense size: The towers of Killree and Agha viller, both in the county of Kilkenny, terard, Kilkenny, the conditions are have circular plinths, fourteen inches changed: the first rests on massive deep, projecting six inches, and rest- stone-work, on which a massive square ing on a square base, built of heavy tower may have stood at one time; in masonry. Either the builders chang- the two other examples, the towers states: "It is, perhaps, not too much to assert that without his intervention, we should not have preserved in modern times a church worthy of admiration, or a picture or a statue we could look at without shame." This is but just praise, for whatever strength of construction, and utility of design, the sturdy Teuton may possess, he has never been able to grasp that boldness and adaptability of enrichment which seems so natural to the Celtic mind. While Celtic art proper has a distinct and well-defined limit, it is somewhat difficult to the uninitiated to discover where the lines of demarcation begin, and where they leave off The great peculiarity of Irish or Celticfor the terms are equivalent is the use of interlaced ornament, which was carried to great perfection in carving, metal-work, and illuminated manuscripts. The illustrations of Celtic ornaments and initial letters shewn herewith will convey to the reader some idea of this oddness of style, which is singularly at variance with the rest of the world, yet approaches the Byzantine, the Toltec, and to some extent the Moresque style of ornamentation. All the old Celtic MSS. were profusely ornamented, and in them are found the first use of ornamental initial letters, some of which were of gigantic size, occupying the greater part of the page, and ornamented in the most elaborate and beautiful manner. Many volumes of MSS. in the various museums, attest the beauty and fine workmanship of these initials, notably the "Book of Kells," and The Four Masters." In all ornamentations in this style, there is an entire absence of foliage, or other phyllomorphic or vegetable forms. The classical acanthus and Egyptian lotus are entirely ignored; the pattern is intricate, and the details are minute, mostly geometrical, and consist of interlaced ribbon-work, diagonal or spiral lines, and strange inonstrous animals and birds, with top-knots, tongues of odd shapes, and tails, twisting and interverging into endless knots and bows. The so-called key pattern is another THE TARA BROOCH. form of Celtic ornament. It resembles somewhat the Greek fret, but is thrown diagonally across the surface, to be decorated, instead of being square to the sides of the border. This style of Celtic ornament, and the interlaced work, are never found on Pagan Celtic metalwork, and they came probably from the East along with the Christian missionaries. One of the most simple letter patterns consisted of red dots, and is one of the chief characteristics of AngloSaxon and Irish Celtic work. Some adequate idea of the beauty and skilful rendering of the work on this precious relic. The ornamentation and character of work corresponds with times these dots were formed into name. It is fortunate for us that the custom of caring for the books, bells, and other reliquaries of the Celtic saints after death, obtained in the early days, for otherwise, few specimens of genuine Celtic art, apart from the monuments, would have reached us. These valuables were preserved in costly shrines or caskets, and became objects of superstitious reverence; being carried by the ecclesiastics in front of the armies in battle, to insure victory, and employed for healing the sick, and for taking oaths upon. Each shrine had its hereditary keeper, who was answerable for the safety of the relic, and the history of many of them may thus be traced back from the present day to the time of the saints to whom they originally belonged. The oldest cumduch, or book-shrine, now remaining, is that of St. Molaise's Gospels in the museum in Dublin. It is known as the "Soicel Molaise," and has an inscription upon it, showing that it was made for Cennfaelad, who was Abbot of Devenish, A.D. 1001 to 1025. The shrine was preserved up to 1845 in the family of O'Meehan, who for more than 500 years were the "Cemracbas," or representatives of St. Molaise. This shrine is oblong in form, and is made of bronze plates, and is ornamented with the symbols of the four Evangelists, and panels of interlaced dragons and knot-work. There are no less than seven bell shrines in existence, dating from the tenth to the fourteenth century. The finest is that of Armagh, called the "Shrine of the bell of St. Patrick's Will." It is now in the Royal Irish Academy Museum, Dublin. The bell itself is spoken of in the Annals of Ulster as being in existence in the year 552, but the present case does not date back beyond 1000 A.D. The brooch of Tara, which was picked up by an old woman near Drogheda, in 1850, is a fine specimen of early Celtic work and it will be impossible to convey to the reader by words any that of the best period of Celtic art, such as the "Book of Kells," and the gold, silver, niello, variously colored |