munications can scarcely be estimated according to their original 

 value, in consequence of the rapid advances which chemical science 

 has made within the last half century, and to which Mr. Kirwan 

 80 ably contributed. At the period of the first promulgation of his 

 investigations, his name was to be seen more frequently quoted 

 than that of any other chemist in all the scientific journals of 

 Europe. 



In Dublin he also resumed his conversazioni, and, as usual, asso- 

 ciated with the chief literary and scientific characters of the day. 

 His intimates were the Provost and Vice-provost ; Doctors Magee, 

 Graves, Young, Kearney, Hall, Elrington, and Davenport, then Fel- 

 lows of the College. He was also on terms of friendship with Lord 

 Norbury, Bishop Law, Speaker Foster, Judge Daly, Lord Charle- 

 mont, then President of the Royal Irish Academy, General Vallan- 

 cey, &c.; and he frequently received visits from the different Lords 

 Lieutenant at his house. 



Mr. Kirwan, at this time one of the first chemical authorities 

 in Europe, had greatly extended the boundaries of the sciences 

 which he cultivated. He was equally eminent as a mineralogist, 

 and had signalized himself by being the author of the first syste- 

 matic work on mineralogy that had appeared in the English lan- 

 guage. As a geologist he deserves the gratitude of mankind, for 

 the publication of his essays in which he undertook the task of 

 vindicating the cosmogony of Moses. At that period, the account 

 given in the book of Genesis was deemed by many to be incompa- 

 tible with the facts elicited by geological research. Mr. Kirwan 

 himself told me, that he was an object of derision to the French 

 geologists for his adherence to the Scripture account Happily, in 

 the present day, every well-authenticated geological discovery is 

 found to be supported by and to agree with holy writ, although by 

 no means with the date which Archbishop Tenison has assigned to 

 the creation of the world, and on which Mr. Kirwan has relied, as 

 if it were any part of the Scripture. The geological essays evince 

 the possession of an immense fund of varied knowledge. 



But for Mr. Kirwan's intelligence and energy Ireland might not 

 now be in possession of the splendid collection of minerals known 

 in the Royal Dublin Society's Museum as the Leskeyan Cabinet. 



