The games and athletic exercises of ancient Ireland ought to have a large volume devoted to them. They are unlike those of all other nations, though least unlike those of Greece. They possess extraordinary archæological and ethnological value.
It is sincerely to be hoped that some student of Irish antiquities will soon follow in the lighted footsteps of Prof. Eugene O'Curry, Dr. O'Donovan, and Sir William Wilde.
the quality of Belgians, Englishmen, Scotchmen, and Irishmen. He found the average height of the Belgian to be sixty-eight inches, of the Englishman sixty-eight and one half, of the Scotchman sixty-nine, and of the Irishman seventy inches; that the average weight in pounds of the Belgian was one hundred and fifty pounds, of the Englishman one hundred and fifty-one, of the Scotchman one hundred and fifty-two, and of the Irishman one hundred and fifty-five pounds; and that the average strength as indicated by a blow given to the plate of a spring dynamometer, in pounds, was, of the Belgian, three hundred and thirty-nine poimds, of the Englishman four hundred and three pounds, of the Scotchman, four hundred and twenty-three pounds, and of the Irishman, four hundred and thirty-two pounds.
"The Irish are thus," says Sir Robert Kane, L.L.D., "the tallest, strongest, and heaviest of the four races." And Sir Robert Kane adds, "Mr. Field, an eminent mechanical engineer of London, had occasion to examine the relative powers of British and Irish laborers to raise weights by means of a crane. He communicated his results to the Institute of Civil Engineers in London. He found that the utmost efforts of a man, lifting at the rate of one foot per minute, ranged in Englishmen from eleven thousand five hundred and five to
