of information on the geography of Europe during the ninth century, and have the further interest of being the first attempts at geographical record in England. The voyages of Ohthere and Wulfstan are the earliest accounts in our language of voyages of discovery, and indicate the methods employed by the great king in collecting information about foreign lands. The description of Germania is no doubt the exposition of information so gathered. That this information was carefully sifted and systematized is shown by (i) the clearness of Alfred's conception of the positions of the Germanic tribes, (ii) the consistency of his descrip? tion, and (iii) its agreement with external evidence. The description of Germania begins with a rough yet clear definition of boundaries, viz. the Don, the Danube, the Rhine, and the Cwcnsa. The area is then divided into three regions : (i) Continental Germania proper, (ii) the frontier peoples (chiefly Slavonic), and (iii) the Baltic tribes. Each region is then described separately, the description being limited to the location of the principal contemporary tribes and to the insertion of a few interesting parenthetic notes. In his detailed treatment of these three regions Alfred, with his usual originality, invented a descriptive system of his own. This system, so far as I am aware, has not hitherto been observed. For this reason there has been some confusion over the location of tribes mentioned, and the importance of the record has not been sumciently recognized. The principle on which the system is based is the selection of pivotal tribes in each region and the fixation of the positions of other tribes by compass bearings from the pivots. Thus the East Franks were selected as a pivotal point, and from them were fixed the positions of the Swabians (Sw&fas), Bavarians (B&gware) with their capital Regnesburg, the Bohemians (Bmme), the Thuringians (iByringas), the Old Saxons (as distinguished from those in the new island home), and the Frisians