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ply the means orpresenting them to the world. This is as it should 

 be ; but it is only just that your confidence be returned. You have 

 a perfect right to demand from the geometrician a similar conces- 

 sion ; you are entitled to expect that, for instance, if he be ignorant 

 of the language or history of Ireland, he shall trust to the anti- 

 quarian on subjects where the acquirements of the latter are essen- 

 tial. The more firmly we are convinced of this (which is in truth 

 the only true base of prosperity as a body) the safer we shall be. We 

 can never forget it without lessening our usefulness and weakening 

 our power : it is enforced by prudence as well as justice ; for we must 

 look to the departments of Literature and Antiquities as the main 

 sources of our national influence. Those transcendental achieve- 

 ments to which I have referred act through a remote and exterior 

 zone; the others bear more powerfully on one which, though of less 

 extent, surrounds us in immediate contact, from which we draw 

 the elements of our body, in whose movements our existence is in- 

 volved. Whatever tends to interest our countrymen in our pursuits, 

 strengthens our hands ; and it is needless to show that in this re- 

 spect the objects which are most popular must be most powerful. 

 You have hitherto carried out this principle most effectually, and I 

 now insist on it the more, as an application of it to the special action 

 of one of your committees may not be unworthy of your considera- 

 tion. Two of them have lately devoted themselves to work which 

 will give us an additional claim on the gratitude of the Public. The 

 Committee of Science is superintending a survey of the tides and 

 meteorology of our island ; both subjects of peculiar interest, the 

 first from the remarkable facts which Mr. Airy's discussion of them 

 has made known, and from variations of the mean sea-level round 

 our shores, as yet inexplicable by theory, and therefore requiring 

 most careful examination ; the other from its striking contrast with 

 continental climates, and its display of oceanic influence, whose 

 working must be important on organic life, perhaps even on na- 

 tional character. The Committee of Antiquities, besides the service 

 which it conferred on us and the world in establishing our Museum, 

 that glorious fragment of the vanished past, is about to complete 

 its tribute to the ancient renown of Ireland by describing and illus- 

 trating its treasures. This is no easy task ; yet when the Council 



