459 



Munster; an account of the battle of Crionna, between Cor- 

 mac Mac Art and the Ultonians ; the adventures ofLaogh- 

 aire, son of a King of Connaught, with the fairies; the 

 manner in which Connor Mac Nessa, son of a Druid, ob- 

 tained the crown of Munster; a very curious historical 

 tale, entitled, The Seige of Druim Damhghaire, now Knock- 

 long, in the County of Limerick. This tale is of great im- 

 portance, from its undoubted antiquity, and the topogra- 

 phical descriptions which it contains of the country about 

 Fermoy, in the County of Cork. 



The last tract in the MS. is one of very great in- 

 terest : it is in the form of a dialogue between St. Patrick 

 and the two survivors of Fiana Eireann, — Caoilte Mac Ro- 

 nain and Oisin, son of Finn Mac Cumhail. It describes 

 the situation of several hills, mountains, rivers, caverns, 

 rills, &c., in Ireland, with the derivation of their names. 

 It is much to be regretted, that this very curious tract 

 is imperfect, especially as no other copy of it is known 

 to exist. But for these defects we should probably have 

 found in this tract notices of almost every monument of note 

 in ancient Ireland : and, even in its present mutilated state, 

 it cannot but be regarded as preserving the most ancient tra- 

 ditions to which we can now have access, — traditions which 

 were committed to writing at a period when the ancient cus- 

 toms of the people were unbroken and undisturbed. 



Rev. H. Lloyd, V.P., gave an account of a series of ob- 

 servations of the Magnetic Declination, made by Professor 

 Bache of Philadelphia and himself, in the hope of deter- 

 mining thereby differences of longitude. 



It is well known that the magnetic declination, at a given 

 place, is subject to frequent and irregular variations, and 

 that corresponding changes occur, at the same instant of 

 time, at very distant places. The first recognition of this 

 remarkable phenomenon seems to have been made by Arago, 

 while comparing the observations of decHnation made by 



