from the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy. 335 



some of this composition, but I do not know to what date or people his speci- 

 mens have been assigned by archfeologists. 



Lead is another of the metals which was extracted from its ores and applied 

 to many of the purposes for which it is used at the present day, at probably a 

 a period nearly as ancient as that of the introduction of copper. With the 

 exception of native metals, no ore would be more likely to have come under 

 the notice and attracted the attention of primitive metallurgists than galena, 

 the commonest form in which lead occurs, and from which its extraction would 

 present scarcely any difficulty even with the rudest means for smelting. 

 Mention is accordingly maile of this metal among the Egyptians, Hebrews, 

 Greeks, Eomans, and other nations of antiquity, who not only used it in its 

 separate state for water-pipes and other mechanical purposes, but were also ac- 

 quainted with the method of employing it in the refinement of gold* and silver.f 

 In Britain, particularly in Derbyshire, numerous remains of lead-workings have 

 been discovered, probably belonging to the time of the Roman occupation, but- 

 I have seen no account of any relics of this metal of similar antiquity having 

 been found in Ireland ; and in the Museum of the Academy, the only traces of 

 lead that I could find were the cores or filling of one or two reliquaries of thin 

 gold plate or foil, which are, I believe, considered as specimens of mediajval art. 

 The interior surface of one of these cores, which was itself hollow, was conside- 

 rably corroded, being covered with a grayish crust of carbonate, the production 

 of which was probably accelerated by the contact of the gold. Some ancient lead 

 from an abbot's coffin in the Cathedral of Christ Church, Dublin, which was 

 deeply pitted by corrosion, yielded traces of sulphate along with the carbonate 

 upon its surface, and on cupellation of the metal itself left a minute bead of silver. 



Of the numerous 



WEAPONS AND IMPLEMENTS OF IRON 



I examined four, namely : — 



No. 1. A sword found at Kilmainham, near Dublin. It is long and straight, 

 adapted for both cutting and thrusting, and is one of those examined by M. 

 WoRSAAE on visiting the Museum a few years ago, and declared by him to 



* Theognis — rvw/iai. 1. 1101. f Jeremiah, vi. 28. Pliny, lib. xxxiii. c. 6. 



