382 
From the extreme degree of heat to which they appear 
to have been subjected, and the consequent vitrification 
which has in some measure taken place, they are quite as ca- 
pable of resisting the attacks of time as the glass and porcelain 
deities and ornaments found in the mummy cases of Egypt, 
and may have lain for an indefinite period beneath the sur- 
face of the earth. It is therefore, at least, possible that they 
may have arrived hither from the East, along with the wea- 
pons, ornaments, and other articles of commerce, which were 
brought to these islands by the ships of the great merchant- 
princes of antiquity, the Phoenicians, to whom our ports and 
harbours were well known. 
Mr. Smith then called the attention of the Academy to 
the remarkable discovery, by Rosellini, Lord Prudhoe, and 
other recent travellers, of unquestionable Chinese vases in 
the tombs of Egypt. He read a passage from Davis's China, 
in which some of them were described; and also an ex- 
tract from Wilkinson’s Ancient Egyptians, from which it 
appeared that the number of Chinese vases found at Coptos, 
Thebes, and elsewhere, amounted to seven or eight, and that 
the inscriptions on them had been translated by Chinese 
scholars to mean, “ The flower opens, and lo! another year,” 
being a line from an ancient Chinese poem. 
From this the trade of China with distant countries, at a 
period of the remotest antiquity, being clearly proved, Mr. 
Smith submitted to the Academy that a case of strong pro- 
bability had been made out, that the porcelain seals found 
their way into Ireland at some very distant period. In fact, 
ifthey be not of modern introduction into this country—a 
supposition which the situations in which several of them have 
been found seems utterly to preclude—their arrival here 
must of necessity have been most ancient. 
Mr. Petrie read a paper “on ancient Seals of Irish 
Chiefs, and Persons of inferior Rank,” preserved in the col-, 
EE 
