THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. 157 



in several respects with the heads in our tumuli. The disks, as 

 Wilde suggests, were used probably for spinning thread. 



III. 



I may be reminded that the Irish Annals refer to the landing 

 of a chief, called Partholan, and his sons, before the men of the stone 

 age, Fir-bolgs. We may, I think, dismiss it as questionable if not 

 altogether untrustworthy. 



Indeed some modern writers are disposed to question the exis- 

 tence of the Danann Tribe altogether ; they consider they were 

 merely the succeeding generations of the Celtic Cimmerians or 

 Kimri, which, under more favorable conditions than they had pre- 

 viously enjoyed, gradually acquired an independent civilization 

 unindebted to outside influences. If this could be established it 

 would be a singular fact in the history of mankind. Such develop- 

 ment may not be impossible, it certainly was unusual. I hope I 

 have not misunderstood the purport of this criticism, which appeared 

 in an English paper after the catalogue of Irish antiquities was 

 published. The actual words I cannot recall. It was not an unfair 

 one on the whole, but the writer I think failed to see that he possessed 

 only a very superficial knowledge of the subject. I do not intend to 

 imply by this that the critic was unacquainted with Celtic English 

 antiquities, but he appeared to me to know very little respecting 

 our Irish ones, and more especially their surroundings. The bardic 

 traditions relative to the Milesian invasion, which was said to have 

 taken place 1700 years B. C, was rejected also on the grounds of its 

 utter improbability. 



I do not suppose a people using stone implements only, could 

 have fashioned such vessels or canoes, as may have enabled them to 

 reach the Irish shores in the way related. The succeeding wave of 

 immigration possibly introduced the Dananns, a tribe highly civilized. 

 If they were not actually Phoenicians, as many of us think, from 

 whence did they acquire the knowledge they unquestionably pos- 

 sessed ? The glass beads and ornaments of blended colors found in 

 their mortuary urns, burial mounds and catacombs, can scarcely be 

 excelled in the present age. That the Sidonians were acquainted 

 with navigation admits of no denial, and we learn from the father 

 of history and others, that at a very early age indeed, their ships 

 sailed round Africa. In Wilde's narrative, " Travels in Egypt, Pal- 



