382 



From the extreme degree of heat to which they appear 

 to have been subjected, and the consequent vitrification 

 which has in some measure taken place, they are quite as ca- 

 pable of resisting the attacks of time as the glass and porcelain 

 deities and ornaments found in the mummy cases of Egypt, 

 and may have lain for an indefinite period beneath the sur- 

 face of the earth. It is therefore, at least, possible that they 

 may have arrived hither from the East, along with the wea- 

 pons, ornaments, and other articles of commerce, which were 

 brought to these islands by the ships of the great merchant- 

 princes of antiquity, the Phoenicians, to whom our ports and 

 harbours were well known. 



Mr. Smith then called the attention of the Academy to 

 the remarkable discovery, by Rosellini, Lord Prudhoe, and 

 other recent travellers, of unquestionable Chinese vases in 

 the tombs of Egypt. He read a passage from Davis's China, 

 in which some of them were described ; and also an ex- 

 tract from Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians, from which it 

 appeared that the number of Chinese vases found at Coptos, 

 Thebes, and elsewhere, amounted to seven or eight, and that 

 the inscriptions on them had been translated by Chinese 

 scholars to mean, " The flower opens, and lo ! another year," 

 being a line from an ancient Chinese poem. 



From this the trade of China with distant countries, at a 

 period of the remotest antiquity, being clearly proved, Mr. 

 Smith submitted to the Academy that a case of strong pro- 

 bability had been made out, that the porcelain seals found 

 their way into Ireland at some very distant period. In fact, 

 if they be not of modern introduction into this country — a 

 supposition which the situations in which several of them have 

 been found seems utterly to preclude — their arrival here 

 must of necessity have been most ancient. 



Mr. Petrie read a paper " on ancient Seals of Irish 

 Chiefs, and Persons of inferior Rank," preserved in the col-, 



