Mr. Kirwan, while a member of the Society, was chiefly instrU' 

 mental in purchasing the collection, for which a fund was provided 

 by the Irish Parliament in 1792, amounting to £1200. In addition 

 to the minerals, he obtained, without any additional expense, a col- 

 lection of shells, some anatomical preparations, an herbarium, and 

 other subjects of natural history. He also arranged the minerals. 

 Besides presenting him with their thanks, the Society voted him a 

 medal made of Irish gold, with an appropriate inscription ; and 

 procured his portrait to be painted by Mr. Hamilton. This portrait, 

 painted when Mr. Kirwan was in his sixty-ninth year, now hangs 

 in the Board Room of the Eoyal Dublin Society. 



As evidences of Mr. Kirwan's talents and industry, we need 

 only refer to the rapid succession of his publications, and the sur- 

 prising diversity of their subjects. Perhaps the best way of giving 

 an idea of the estimation in which this remarkable man was held 

 throughout the civilized world, will be to give a list of honours 

 conferred on him in foreign countries and in his own. He was 

 Honorary Member of the Academies of Stockholm, Upsal, Berlin, 

 Dijon, Philadelphia, and of the Mineralogical Society of Jena; he 

 was Fellow of the Royal Societies of London and Edinburgh, and 

 Honorary Member of the Manchester Society. On the death of 

 Lord Charlemont, in 1799, he was elected President of the Royal 

 Irish Academy. In his latter days, a chemical and mineralogical 

 society formed in Dublin was after him called the Kirwanian 

 Society, and of this he was President. He was also President of 

 the Dublin Library Society. He had the honorary title, without 

 an income, of Inspector-General of His Majesty's Mines in Ireland. 

 He was elected Perpetual Member of the Amicable Society of Gal- 

 way. From the University of Dublin he received the degree of 

 Doctor of Laws, and was always allowed an honourable seat at the 

 examinations for fellowship. By some of the French savans he was 

 designated, by way of excellence, " the Philosopher of Dublin." But 

 the following fact would in itself speak trumpet-tongued, if there 

 were no other evidence of the high opinion which the French che- 

 mists entertained of him. He had written a work in defence of the 

 phlogistic hypothesis of Stahl. The French philosophers were oc- 

 cupied in endeavouring to subvert that hypothesis, and to establish 



