OFFICINAI, PLANTS. 750 OGDEN. OFFICINAL PLANTS (yiL.oficinalis, relat- ing lo a shop, Iroiii Lat. o/ficina, upificinu, shop, from upifcx, workman). Those medicinal plants which have a place iu the pharniacopo'ias of dif- ferent countries, and which are therefore .sold — or some of their products or preparations of them — by apothecaries and druggists. The me- dicinal plants cultivated to any considerable ex- tent are all oilicial, but many are also oflicinal which are not cultivated. A distinction should be made between officinal and otficial drugs. Official drugs include all those substances, whether vegetable, mineral, or animal, used as medicines, and recognized by the various pharmacopoeias. Official preparations are tinctures, syrups, fluids, extracts, emulsions, etc., made from of- ficial drugs, recognized by the pharmacopoeia, and therein directed how to be prepared. OFFSET, or Set-Off. The splay or sloping part of a wall, etc., joining parallel surfaces when the upper face recedes from the lower. This frequently occurs on buttresses. The offset is usually protected with dressed stones, having a projection or drip on the lower edge to prevent the rain from running down the wall. In sur- veying an offset is a line perpendicular to a given straight line on which may be located at some measured distance a point. Such points on various offsets may determine the position of an irregular or inaccessible line and make it possible to map accurately a plot of land whose boundaries are unsvinmetrical or difficult of ac- cess. See Sukt:yixg. OFFSET. A lateral shoot, either a stolon or sucker, which strikes root and forms a new plant. Strawberries, multiplier onions, and black rasp- berries are familiar examples of plants generally projjagated by offsets. O'FLAHERTY, 6-fl.i'er-ti, Roueric ( lfi-20- 171S). .ii Iii-h historiographer, born in Moy- cuUen Castle, Galway. He was educated in his native county, made a special study of Irish his- tory and literature, and published the results in OfDigia. sen Itcruni Hihernienrum Chroiioloyia (1G8.")). the first scholarly work on the subject to reach Kngland. His Vhorographivul Ocserip- iioii of West or Illar Coiiiiautilit was published by the Irish Archieological Society in 1.S40. and li'is letters were edited by .J. T. Gilbert (lS!).i). O'Flaherty lost his property through revolution- ary changes of government, and died in poverty at I'arke, near Galway. OG, og (Heb. 'Og. probably connected with 'Agag). An Amoritish King of Bashan. who is said to have lived at the time of the entrance of the Israelites into Canaan. The chief cities of his territory were Ashtaroth and Edrei. and he and his people were defeated at the latter place by the half-tribe of .Manasseh whidi remained east of the .Jordan ( Deut. iii. I-l:!; .Tosh. xiii. 12). Og is represented as the last of the Re- phaim or giants. The story of his bedstead (Deut. iii. 11) may be based on the huge .sa"r- cophagi which Pha-nieian kings had made in imitation of Egj'ptian customs. Many other fables arose about Og. some of which found their way into the Jewish midrashic collections. See Amobites. OOAM, ng'om (Olr. ogam, ngum, Jr. ogham, Gael, oi'lhcam : perhaps connected with Gk. A;/joc, ogmo.1, row, Skt. ajmaii. course, from aj. Gk. ivetc, agein, Lat. agere, to drive). The name of a script used in various ancient inscriptions in the British Isles. They are found chicUy in the southern parts of Ireland and Wales, and the earliest of them date from the fifth century. They number nearly three hundred in all. The language in almost every case is a primitive form of Gaelic, but some fourteen of them found in Scotland appear to be Pietish. The interpre- tation of these last is entirely doubtful, and scholars are not even agreed as to whether the Pietish language is Indo-European. The invention of the ogams is assigned in Irish tradition to a god Uguia (one of tlie Tualha de Danann), and this name corresponds verv well to Ogmio.s, described by Lucian as a Gaulish Hercules. But the legend looks like an ety- mological afterthought : especially since the motive assigned to Ogina was the desire to invent a secret script which only the learned could use, whereas there appears to have been nothing cryptic about the old Ogam alpliabet. There existed, to be sure, a kind of pedantic puzzle- speech, also called Ogam, some examples of which have been preserved in ^liildle Irish manu- scripts. But this is to be carefully distinguislicd from the ancient Ogam alphabet useil in inscrip- tions. The old alphabet was apparently known down to the Middle Irish period, and inscriptions or messages written in Ogam figure more or lc>-, fretjuently in the popular sagas. The characters have been nearly all made out by recent investigation. They are usually cut along the edge of the .stone ami read from the bottom upward. In the al])habet which fol- lows the horizontal line represents the edge upon which the notches and lines are graven: _L ^■111,:
- jig'Xa aAu.e. i. P"'"'^'
in "Ill uA. ^ A few of the monuments are bilingual. The inscriptions contain almost nothing be- sides ])roper names, but these are of great value for the liglit they throw upon primitive Celtic phonology and inflection. Compare the article on Tri.sii LiTKiurvRE. Bii!i.io(;r.I"IIY. R. R. Brash, The Ogam In- serUiid Moininieiits of the Gaedhil in the liritish Islanils (London, 1879) ; .John Rhys, Lectures on Welsh I'hilolog;/ (•2d ed., London, 187!)) : Sir Samuel Ferguson, articles in the Transactions of I lie Rogal Irish Academg. vol. xxvii., and Ogam liiKeriplio)i.i ill Ireland, Wales, and ftcotland (Ed- inburgh, 1887; being the Rhind Lectures for 1884) : R. A. Stewart Macalister. fitndies in Irish ICpigraphg. part i. (London. 1807. part ii., 1002). The Pietish problem is discussed by Rhys. The Inscriptions and Language of the orlhirn. Picts, Proceedings of the Society of Antiquarians of Scotland. 1802, pp. 2li fT. On the Ogmic puzzle-writing see Thurneysen in the Kerue celliijue. vii.. ]>]), 3(!0 ff. OGASAWARA-SHIMA, A-gii'sft-wii'rA-shP'- ma lTa|i.. islands (iivmumI by) Ogasawara). The .lapMiirsi- name of the Bonin Islands (q.v.). OG'DEN. A city and the county-seat of Weber County. I'tah. X! miles north of Salt Lake City; at the eonllnence of the Ogden and Welier rivers, and on the T'nion Pacific. Southern Pacific, Oregon Short Line, Ogden and Xorth-
