174 
water; that the equivalents of oxide are not all retained by 
the same force, and that if we grant to ammonium the title 
of a compound radical, it becomes very difficult to refuse to 
the basic salts, as a class, the position or title of neutral salts 
of compound bases, of a nature nearly similar. 
Mr. Petrie read a paper on “ancient Irish consecrated 
Bells.” 
In this paper the author has first endeavoured to ascer- 
tain the period of the introduction of bells into Ireland, and 
states, that though it is possible that they might have been 
in use previously to the introduction of Christianity, he has 
not found the smallest authority from which it could be 
inferred that they were so. He next shews that there is 
abundance of evidence to prove, that in and from St. Patrick’s 
time, they were generally used for the services of the church, 
and that the consecrated bells of the first teachers of 
Christianity in Ireland were afterwards applied to various 
superstitious purposes, of which he gives a great number of 
examples, from the lives of the Irish saints, ancient historical 
poems, annals, and other records. These bells were pre- 
served in the churches to which they had originally belonged, 
and were usually enshrined in cases of the most costly 
materials and elaborate workmanship. The author proves that 
many of these bells of the earliest Christian times, though ’ 
hitherto unknown to the literary world, still remain in 
Treland; and he exhibited from his own museum a bell, which 
is celebrated in Irish history, as one of the chief relics of 
the people of the north of Ireland, namely, the Clog- 
an-udhachta, or bell of St. Patrick’s will. He afterwards 
exhibited drawings of several ancient bells, and among 
others, of St. Senanus’s bell, called the golden bell, preserved 
in the county of Claré, and the bell of Armagh, now in the 
possession of Adam M‘Clean, Esq. of Belfast. This bell is 
covered by a case, or shrine, of exquisite beauty of work- 
