The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1894-10-19
TAe ERse LANGUAGE.
a sfeiiiduous Tongue stu Spoken by Up
rrnrlln nf 1,rr1, sIilII,,n I,nnr,i.,

wards OF Two Million People.
We ere glad to notice as an event Of
literary Importance, says the New
York Sun, the recent organization in
Providence, X. l., of Celtic society.
the object Of which Is TO revive interest
In the rnelliauous and influential tongue
Of Ireland.
No other language, having itself no
great masterpiece Of literature, has
had such effect on modern literature as
the Celtic. To it we owe many Of the
.airy tales of our childhood; some OF
ShaEespeare's plays, some of the inch
tents detailed in the Arthurian poems,
even some Of those In the Divine Com
edy, are drawn from Celtic sources. 1t
was saidof Washington: Mature made
him childleGs that he might be the
father of his country;" so it might al
most be said of the Celtic language;
Mature left it childless that IL might
be the mother of other literaturcs.r
The Celtic language is not dead
language. One-sixth Of the population
of the Emerald isle Tin round numbers,
eight hundred thousand persons) under
stand Erse; sixty thousand persons
there know no other language than 1t;
one-third of the territory Of Ireland is
still Celtic, so far as the ability TO un-
dcrstand the language is concerned,
and upward of two million IN this coun-
try and Canada are familiar with the
tongue. The path Of the new society
and of 1t predecessors is uphill, but the
ascent has an end. A century ago the
Welsh language was really in worse
case than the Erse is now, but by the
eXertions Of scholars and the local
clergy of Wales 1t was rescued, and to-
day Is vigorous both in Wales and
America. That similar success may
await the Celtic societies of this coun-
try in their patriotic labors wo sincere
" hope. ---...-
a Spot in Persia Where the Thormometei
Shows 13O In the Shade.
The hottest region on the earth's sur
face is on the southwestern coast Of
Persia, on the borders of the Persian
gulf, says an exchange. For forty con.
secutiye days in the months OF July
and August the mercury has been
known to stand above one hundred de-
grees in The shade night and day, and
to run up as high as one hundred and
thirty degrees in the middle of the aft
ernoon. At Buhrin, in tho center of
the most torrid part of this most torrid
belt, ns though it was natures inten-
ton to make the place as unbearable
as possible, water from wells is some
thing unknown. Great shafts have
been sunk to n depth of five hundred
feet, but always with the same result
no water, Notwithstanding this
serious drawback, numerous pop
ulation contrives to live there,
thanks TO copious springs, which burst
forth from the bottom of the gull more
than q mile from the shore. The wa
ter from these springs is obtained in q
most curious and novel manner. Macha-
dores, whose sole occupation Is that Of
furnishing the people Of Bahrin with
the life-giving fluid, repair TO that por-
ton of the gulf where the springs are
situated, and bring away with them
hundreds Of skin bags full of the water
each day. The water of the gulf where
the springs burst forth is nearly two
hundred feet deep, but the machadores
-divers--manage to fill their goat.
skin sacks by diving to the bottom and
holding the mouths of the bags over the
fountain jets; this, too, wTthout allow.
ing tho salt water of the gulf to mis
with it. The source of these subma.
rine fountains is thought to be in the
hills of Osmond, five hundred miles
away. Being situated at the bottom Of
the gulf, it is a mystery how they were
ever discovered, but the fact remains
that they have been known since the
dawn of history.