339 
by elaborate and far-fetched conjectures, to discover in it a Latin 
sentence ; and the Committee of Antiquities of that day were unable 
to detect the error. The great change that has since taken place, I 
do not hesitate to say, is mainly due to the papers with which Dr. 
Petrie has enriched our Transactions. They are remarkable for 
the historical value of the conclusions they have established, and 
the varied and extensive learning they display,—but they are still 
more valuable as models of the true spirit in which inquiries of this 
description ought to be conducted. Nor is Dr. Petrie the only 
labourer in this great field of usefulness. We have also had an ad- 
mirable specimen of a similar application of the true method of 
philosophical investigation to antiquarian research in the commu- 
nications made to us by our Secretary, Dr. Graves, on the interpre- 
tation of the Irish Ogham inscriptions. I have reason to hope that 
he will soon be in a condition to make a further communication to 
the Academy, which will put beyond a doubt the truth of the con- 
clusions he has already arrived at on that interesting subject, and 
which will throw considerable additional light on the true age of 
the Ogham inscriptions, and their connexion with the Runic monu- 
ments of the Scandinavian nations. 
But it is not only in the study of our national antiquities that the 
Academy has contributed largely to the advancement of Archzo- 
logical Science. The papers of Dr. Hincks, which have appeared 
in our Transactions and elsewhere, have placed him by common 
consent in the first rank of those who have successfully investigated 
the subject of greatest archeological interest of the present day,—the 
Egyptian and Assyrian monuments. It is only fair to Dr. Hincks, 
in speaking of his eminent services to this department of literature, 
to bear in mind that his position as the rector of a parish in a re- 
mote part of Ireland, with a limited income, and no power of con- 
sulting either the monuments themselves, or the books that might 
aid his researches, places him under a great disadvantage ; and never- 
theless, he has done more to elucidate the language of the inscrip- 
tions, and the chronology of the obscure sovereigns whose history they 
record, than those who have had the advantage of a daily access to 
the British Museum and to the Libraries of our Universities. Had 
circumstances permitted him to reside for any considerable time in 
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