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" The first meeting took place on the 15th of October, 1683, 

 when papers were read by Mr. William Molyneaux, Dr. 

 Narcissus Marsh, afterwards Archbishop of Dublin, Mr. Foley, 

 and Mr. St. George Ashe. It is remarkable, that although 

 Ware, Birch, and Whitelaw have agreed in dating the origin 

 of this society in 1683, Mr. Halliwell has, in a " Collection 

 of Notes on the early History of Science in Ireland," pub- 

 lished in the Proceedings of this Academy for 1841, stated 

 that its first meeting took place on the 28th of January, 1684. 

 In the winter of 1683, writes Archbishop Marsh in his Diary, 

 ' was set up the Philosophical Meeting in Dublin, that met 

 and formed itself into a society, in the Provost's lodgings. 

 There, at the first opening of it, as a prelude to what we were 

 to do, I in three or four days' time, composed An Introductory 

 Discourse to the Doctrine of Sounds, which was sent to the 

 Society in Oxford, and then printed in the Philosophical 

 Transactions.'* 



" Not having facilities for publishing their proceedings in 

 Ireland, it appears that they determined upon offering them 

 to the Royal Society ; accordingly, on the 18th of December, 

 1683, the Provost, Dr. Robert Huntingdon, wrote a letter to 

 Dr. Plot, of the Royal Society, giving an account ot ' a 

 weekly meeting of several ingenious men about philosophical 

 subjects in Dublin.' This notice, which is recorded in the 

 letter book of the Royal Society (vol. ix, p. 103), informs us 

 that W. Molyneaux, then residing near Ormond's Gate (now 

 Wormwood Gate), and who was at that period engaged in 

 writing an 'Atlas for this Country,' was Secretary: — 'And 

 since,' he writes, 'you so generously, as well as charitably, 

 offer your assistance, I think this will be the best method of 

 conveyance, to transmit our notices to the Secretary of the 



* The Diary of Archbishop Marsh, from a transcript in Marsh's Li- 

 brary, Dublin, published by the Rev. Dr. Todd in the British Magazine 

 for July and August, 1845. 



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