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tion. To him we are indebted for having directed the attention of 

 the public and the renewed zeal of Irish antiquaries to the subject of 

 the Ogham inscriptions. He collected from various places a great 

 number of stones inscribed with Ogham characters, and pointed out 

 the importance of examining the inscriptions themselves, instead 

 of depending upon hastily made copies of them, as had previously 

 been the usual course adopted by those who attempted their inter- 

 pretation. This valuable collection of Ogham stones is now in the 

 museum of the Cork Institution. Mr. Abell was a member of the 

 Society of Friends, and was remarkable for his enlightened philan- 

 thropy, and the variety of his literary tastes. 



3. The Right Honourable Windham Henry Wyndham Quin, 

 Earl of Dunraven and Mount Earl, &c, died at Adare Manor, in 

 the County Limerick, August 6, 1850, in the sixty-eighth year of 

 his age. 



Lord Dunraven was elected a Member of the Academy on the 

 22nd May, 1843. He had been a Member of the Imperial Parlia- 

 ment for several years, having been first elected as representative of 

 the County Limerick in 1806. He succeeded to the peerage on the 

 death of his father in 1824, and was chosen a representative peer 

 in 1839. 



4. Richard Sharpe, Esq., elected a Member of the Academy, 

 13th January, 1845. 



Mr. Sharpe had an hereditary claim to eminence in the noble de- 

 partment of practical science, to which his life was devoted. The 

 chronometers made by his father are still highly prized by those 

 who possess them, and the equatorial made by him for the Obser- 

 vatory of the University is probably more steady than any other 

 instrument of equal dimensions in existence. 



The son, however, with equal practical dexterity and zeal for 

 his profession, exceeded the father in inventive powers. Many of his 

 contrivances have been honoured with medals from the Royal Dub- 

 lin Society and other scientific institutions. But those which have 

 in this way become known to the public bear a very small propor- 

 tion to the numerous inventions of which no record is preserved. 

 Three of the more remarkable of these may be here noticed. 



1. His method of figuring the acting surfaces of the dead beat, 



