390 



February 10. 

 SIR Wm. R. HAMILTON, LL.D., President, in the Chair. 



Rev. Maurice M'Kay, LL.D., Frederick W. Burton, 

 Esq. R.H.A., Joseph Napier, Esq., and Thomas Hutton, 

 Esq. F.G.S., were elected Members of the Academy. 



Resolved, — To empower the Council, to prepare an 

 Address of congratulation to Her Majesty, on the occasion 

 of her marriage, and to affix the seal of the Academy 

 thereto. 



The Academy adjourned. 



February 24. 

 SIRWm. R. HAMILTON, LL.D., President, in the Chair. 



J. Huband Smith, Esq. read a paper " on the different 

 kinds of Querns used by the Irish." 



Having lately presented to the Academy, as a contri- 

 bution to their collection of Irish Antiquities, an oblong 

 quern, or corn-mill, of the most primitive form, Mr. Smith 

 now offered some few remarks on this very ancient article of 

 housewifery. 



The circular or rotatory quern, the parent of the modern 

 millstones, is well known to antiquarians ; but the still 

 earlier and ruder hand-mill of an oblong form, (and which, 

 therefore, must have been used in a very slow and laborious 

 process, by pushing the upper stone backwards and for- 

 wards upon the under,) does not appear to have been 

 hitherto noticed, being, in fact, very rarely met with ; while 

 the round quern is of comparatively common occurrence. 



