1908. The British Association in Dublin. 241 



the left, but the passage coutiuues forward to the right. To the left the 

 rising floor is composed of boulders and saud, cemented together and 

 covered with stalagmite. At the upper end of the slope is a fine collec- 

 tion of stalactites, A low passage 15 feet wade leads from here into a 

 fissure cave 30 feet high and 50 feet long. The low-level passage at the 

 bottom of the boulder slope continues for 93 5'ards, 15 to 25 feet in height 

 and about ro feet in width, to the ' Pool Chamber.' This is about 15 

 yards in diameter, and 20 feet high, and has a still pool at its lowest 

 point. Beyond this chamber the passage continues 15 feet wide and 

 about 4 feet high, and in 12 yards is blocked with boulders, A climb of 

 about 15 feet vertically upwards through these boulders leads into the 

 bottom of a chamber about So feet high and 25 yards in diameter, the 

 floor of which is entirely composed of a slope of large boulders. The 

 upper end of the boulder slope leads to the bottom of a narrow pot-hole 

 30 feet deep, for the descent of which ladders are necessary. At the far 

 corner of this chamber there is a small hole leading, between jammed 

 boulders, into the floor of the pot hole into which the high-level passage 

 opens, and within 20 feet of the end of the passage. The portion of the 

 cave beyond the Pool Chamber and the two openings there were un- 

 known before this year. Fluorescine put into the Monastir Sink at 

 11.30 a.m. in dr}' weather was clearh' visible at Cradle Hole at 1045 a.m. 

 the following day, and at 6.45 the same evening began to emerge at the 

 Marble Arch spring. 



SUB-SECTION F.— AGRICULTURE. 



THE EDUCATIONAL WORK OF THE IRISH DEPARTMENT OF 



AGRICULTURE. 



BY PROF. J R. CAMPBEIyT,, B.SC. 



There was an agricultural school in Ireland as early as 1826 ; those 

 interested in this early venture wdll find an account of it in Thackeray's 

 " Irish Sketch Book." In 1838 the Commissioners of National Education 

 began their system of agricultural instruction, wdiich they continued up 

 to the creation of the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruc- 

 tion in 1900. It was as a demonstration farm in connection with such 

 lessons that the present Albert Agricultural College, Glasnevin, was 

 founded in the same year, 1838. I^ater, about twenty agricultural schools 

 were established in various parts of the country. In 1900, when the 

 Department of Agriculture was established and charged with the duty of 

 providing agricultural education in Ireland, all that remained of the pro- 

 vision made b}' the Commissioners were two institutions — one the Albert 

 Agricultural College, Glasnevin, and the other the Munster Institute, 

 Cork. Agriculture can only be taught by men who have had a system- 

 atic training in science and practice, and teachers in elementary schools 



