202 Scientific Proceedings, Royal Dublin Society. 



ward, at Garrykennedy, on Lough Derg, "old men's workings" 

 were broken into about the year 1855, and in them were found a 

 man's skeleton and the remains of wooden and stone tools. To 

 the westward of the Shannon, at Milltoini, near Tulla, Co. Clare, a 

 mine was worked in ancient times. Here there is native silver; 

 the oaken shovels and large iron picks found suggesting that 

 the workings were not as old as some of the others. At Garhoon, 

 near Tynagh, Co. Glalway, there are the relics of an ancient mine 

 of which the traditions are extinct. In south-east Ireland, at the 

 Magpie or East Cronebane (Ovoca), Co. Wicklow, there are "old 

 men's workings," on the " gossan lode," and in them were found 

 stone and wooden implements. Here native silver was also found. 



From so many of these ancient mines being on silver-lead 

 lodes, it may be suggested that the "old men" understood a 

 process for separating the silver from the lead. 



Nennius, who wrote in the ninth century, mentions the mines 

 of Lough Leane, Killarney ; while about the year 1804, when Col. 

 Hall was working the lead mine at Ross Island, he found primitive 

 levels, stone implements, and other records of ancient work. 



At Derrycarhoon, near Ballydehob, Co. Cork, in an old work- 

 ing, there were wooden and stone implements, a curved tube of 

 oak, and a primitive ladder — the latter being an oak pole, with 

 rude steps cut in its sides. This working must have been very 

 ancient, as when found all traces of the surface entrance were 

 smothered up by a growth of peat, over fourteen feet deep ; this 

 ought to represent a period of, at the least, 3000 years or more. 



About the year 1850 wooden tools, shod with iron, were found 

 in ancient galleries, in connexion with the coal seam of the Bally- 

 castle coal-field, Co. Antrim ; while wooden scoops were found in 

 an old working for bog-iron in the Queen's County, some of them 

 being now in the Eoyal Irish Academy Museum. 



During the rush after Irish mines, about twenty-five or thirty 

 years ago, their characters were considerably prejudiced, and the 

 working of them retarded, by a class of " Promoters," who mis- 

 represented them ; also by incautious Analysts, who represented the 

 ores more favourably than they were entitled to. Such proceed- 

 ings are most damaging to a mine ; for although it may be good of 

 its kind, and be capable of paying well, if judiciously worked, 

 when it cannot give the "riches" promised, it gets into disrepute; 



