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tion. To him we are indebted for having directed the attention of 
the public and the renewed zeal of Irish antiquaries to the subject of 
the Ogham inscriptions. He collected from various places a great 
number of stones inscribed with Ogham characters, and pointed out 
the importance of examining the inscriptions themselves, instead 
of depending upon hastily made copies of them, as had previously 
been the usual course adopted by those who attempted their inter- 
pretation. This valuable collection of Ogham stones is now in the 
museum of the Cork Institution. Mr. Abell was a member of the 
Society of Friends, and was remarkable for his enlightened philan- 
thropy, and the variety of his literary tastes. 
3. The Right Honourable WinpHam Henry Wynnum Quin, 
Earl of Dunraven and Mount Earl, &c., died at Adare Manor, in 
the County Limerick, August 6, 1850, in the sixty-eighth year of 
his age. 
Lord Dunraven was elected a Member of the Academy on the 
22nd May, 1843. He had been a Member of the Imperial Parlia- 
ment for several years, having been first elected as representative of 
the County Limerick in 1806. He succeeded to the peerage on the 
death of his father in 1824, and was chosen a representative peer 
in 1839, 
4. Ricuarp Suarpe, Esq., elected a Member of the Academy, 
13th January, 1845. 
Mr. Sharpe had an hereditary claim to eminence in the noble de- 
partment of practical science, to which his life was devoted. The 
chronometers made by his father are still highly prized by those 
who possess them, and the equatorial made by him for the Obser- 
vatory of the University is probably more steady than any other 
instrument of equal dimensions in existence. 
The son, however, with equal practical dexterity and zeal for 
his profession, exceeded the father in inventive powers. Many of his 
contrivances have been honoured with medals from the Royal Dub- 
lin Society and other scientific institutions. But those which have 
in this way become known to the public bear a very small propor- 
tion to the numerous inventions of which no record is preserved. 
Three of the more remarkable of these may be here noticed. 
1. His method of figuring the acting surfaces of the dead beat, 
