TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 117 
poraries, which others may carry off to enrich the art treasures of countries not 
perhaps so wealthy in their exchequer as the British Empire—was not acceded to. 
I cannot in passing refrain from alluding to two of these archeological researches 
so graphically brought forward by Mr. Gladstone in his critical review of ‘ Homer’s 
Place in History,’ which appeared in last June’s ‘Contemporary Review.’ In 
one of these notices he alludes to the fact of a number of implements and utensils, 
found by General Cesnola in Cyprus, “exhibiting so extensive a use of uncom- 
bined copper, and so clear and wide an application of that metal to cutting pur- 
poses, as at once to suggest a modification of the theories of those who, in 
arranging what may be termed their metallic periods, assume that the age of 
bronze invariably came in immediate succession to the age of stone.” And, again, 
referring to the great Find on the Troad, he writes, “The excavations, according 
to our present information, present to us copper as the staple material of the im- 
pent, utensils, and of the weapons (so far as they were metallic) of the inha- 
itants of Troy ;—so do the poems.” No better authority could be adduced on the 
latter subject; but if the learned writer had inspected our great collection of 
antique metal work in the National Museum of the Royal Irish Academy before it 
was disarranged, and had he done the author of the ‘ Descriptive Catalogue’ of these 
antiquities (written eighteen years ago) the honour of reading the dissertation on our 
early metallic work, he would have seen that copper weapons, tools, and implements 
were the “forerunners of the mixed metal—bronze or brass” in Ireland. 
I am not going into the subject of the single or multiple origin of man; nor do 
I intend discussing the question of the cave-man, or the race whose early imple- 
ments, weapons, and tools are found in the drift. 
Upon the subject of what is termed “ Prehistoric” I may possess peculiar opi- 
nions. What is prehistoric? Does it mean pre-Adamite? or does it refer only to 
the times when some scribe wrote down, from word of mouth, the bardie tale, the 
genealogy or annal, no matter of what era? We do not know where nor by whom 
these annals were first committed to writing, nor what means were taken to alter 
them; but we possess what cannot be falsified by the scribe ; and although styled 
pons, they are far more truthfully historic than the writing that no doubt was 
argely interfered with, and which, if old, now requires a gloss to interpret it. The 
grassy mound or circle, the stones erected into a cromleach, the great sepulchral 
mound, the cinerary urn, the stone weapon or tool, the grain-rubber for triturating 
cereal food, the harpoon for spearing fish, the copper and bronze tools and weapons, 
and the gold ornaments of the most early tribes,—all now are, in their way, far more 
truthful than any thing that could have been committed to writing, even if there 
were letters in that day. They are litanies in stone, dogmata in metal, and ser- 
mons preaching from the grassy mound. 
But how are we to use or apply these early scriptures of history so as to advance 
Anthropology and to educate the public mind? That is a serious question, well 
worthy the attention of this Association. One means, at least, is by properly 
arranged museums, to which, I am happy to say, the working man may now resort 
for recreation and instruction upon almost every day of the week, when his business 
ermits. I must here say a word upon the subject of museums. If you would not 
ave museums like what we remember them to have been—incongruous collec- 
tions of all manner of articles, including cracked china, painted or engraved 
oyster-shells, heads of New-Zealanders tattooed, ostrich-eggs, and, as Romeo found 
in the shop of the apothecary, “an alligator stuffed and other skins of ill-shaped 
fishes,”—you must make some sort of archeological arrangement; and it ought to 
be upon some definite scheme or plan, not fanciful or incongruous, but historic, 
technical, or art-teaching. The educated man can pick out for himself articles that 
ive him instruction, or that support or militate against his own special theory ; 
ut he has come to the inquiry with a skilled eye. The public mind should be 
educated by skilled artists, not merely amused by amateur decorators *. 
* The compartment now used as a “ reading-room” at the Royal Irish Academy was 
specially constructed by Government for a Museum from its foundation to its roof, and 
was, as all such structures should be, well lighted from the top. It was I who proposed 
the extension of the Museum into another room, and the influence of Lord Talbot de Ma- 
lahide largely assisted to procure the funds for that object. 
