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June 11. 



REV. HUMPHREY LLOYD, D.D., President, 

 in the Chair. 



Sir Robert Kane read a paper on the Manufacture of Iron 

 in this country, and exhibited specimens found in different 

 localities. 



The Rev. Charles Graves read the Second Part of a Paper 

 on the Ogham Character. 



Li the former part of this Paper a general account was 

 given of the monuments on which inscriptions in the Ogham 

 character occur ; and from the nature both of the monuments 

 themselves, and of the inscriptions which they bear, it was 

 argued that the theory of those antiquaries who refer them to 

 a period anterior to the introduction of Christianity into Ire- 

 land is not only unsupported, but is even contradicted by 

 facts. 



The great majority of these monuments are characterized 

 by circumstances which more or less distinctly mark them as 

 belonging to the Christian period. Several of them are in- 

 scribed with crosses, of a very ancient form, and to all appear- 

 ance as old as the Ogham inscriptions on them. Many stand 

 in Christian cemeteries ; others in the neighbourhood of cells 

 or oratories. Some are still called after ancient saints, though 

 the inscriptions on them do not exhibit the names by which 

 these saints were ordinarily known. Again, some of the in- 

 scriptions prove, beyond all doubt, that the persons whose 

 work they are were acquainted with the Latin language. Like 

 some of the very ancient sepulchral monuments of Wales and 

 Cornwall, the Ogham stones, in general, bear either a single 

 proper name in the genitive case, or the proper name accom- 

 panied by the patronymic ; the names themselves being such 



